Cash processes are labor-intensive.

In retail environments, the payment process at checkout takes up to 25 seconds, depending on the type of retail store. Added to this are the preparation and till settlement of POS cash drawers in the cash office, the consolidation of cash takings, secure storage of cash in safes, and the preparation of cash for pickup by a cash-in-transit (CiT) company. The CiT company in turn processes the cash at the cash office. And from there it is transported to the central bank, where it finds its way back into the cash cycle once more.
This path is made up of innumerable manual steps that add no value but require extensive personnel resources. In addition, these steps are laden with risks in the form of employee manipulation or theft or robberies at the POS or during removal by the CiT company.

The work of handling cash at retail banks is extensive, too. It’s true that the introduction of ATMs has increased the level of automation in cash dispensing to 75% of withdrawal transactions worldwide, but the remaining manual withdrawals at the bank counter are time- and personnel-intensive. A withdrawal at the bank counter can take up to two minutes. And around the world, nearly 90% of deposit transactions still take place at the bank counter.
Yet if these processes were replaced with secure, automated electronic crediting at a deposit system, the costs of these transactions could be reduced by a factor of five.

Maximizing synergy effects.

From the point of view of cost-intensiveness and security risks, retail banks and retail companies have nearly identical cash handling scenarios. Yet to date, the cash cycles of these two sectors have operated largely independent of each other. This is where Wincor Nixdorf sees great potential for synergies that reduce costs through integrating and linking the cash cycles of banks and retail businesses.