Thursday, April 22, 2021

Reimagining the ATM: From Cash-out to Curbside Banking

by Bill Maurer, UC Irvine and Kate Larson, Kate Larson Writes, LLC with Filene's Center of Emerging Technology

With so many options for ATM service delivery, how can credit union leaders make wise decisions to meet their members’ needs? Set against the backdrop of rapidly changing consumer behavior and expectations during COVID-19, this report explores the past, present, and future of the unpretentious automatic teller machine—and how its evolution impacts credit union strategy today.


Image Credit: Filene


EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

As our financial lives increasingly take up residence online, the ATM may be one of the last physical touchpoints between credit unions and their members. This creates a key opportunity for credit unions to delight members, provide convenience, and create a consistent brand experience across channels. But ATMs can also be an institutional pain point. As physical machines in dispersed locations, they require ongoing maintenance, upgrades, and replacement. Because ATMs touch nearly every part of a credit union’s operations, it can be difficult to view the full impact of an aging fleet, a new strategy, or a potential partnership. Faced with this mix of obstacle and opportunity, how can credit union leaders make the best decisions for their organizations?


WHAT IS THE RESEARCH ABOUT

In the wake of the social and economic changes wrought by COVID-19, ATMs have become an essential way for credit unions to provide members access to cash, deposits, and assistance. Tracing the history of the ATM from early twentieth-century agricultural shows to our pandemic-constrained present reveals a technology that is both deep-rooted and innovative. 

While ATMs may not seem particularly groundbreaking, they have extended the reach of most financial institutions far beyond their branches—and they may provide a blueprint for how credit unions can rethink those branches entirely. We spoke to leaders from credit unions and supporting organizations about their ATM experiences, challenges, successes, and strategies and drew from those insights to offer recommendations and a roadmap for success.


WHAT ARE THE CREDIT UNION IMPLICATIONS?

ATMs are one piece of a member’s full experience with the credit union and should be viewed in that context. Serving as a billboard, a marketing opportunity, and (hopefully) a positive interaction between member and institution, an ATM transaction can leave the member feeling satisfied, or frustrated by a machine that is laggy, limited, or out of service. Credit unions have a variety of options for offering ATM services to members, from owning and servicing their own machines, to partnering with a third- party provider, to joining a shared network, and some organizations may choose several of these. Because any approach will have benefits and drawbacks, each organization must define what success will look like before pursuing a new ATM strategy.

Finally, credit unions should beware of chasing after shiny technology and instead seek to understand their members’ unique needs and preferences in order to design a compatible and accessible ATM experience. But there is plenty of emerging technology to get excited about: contactless payments may render the plastic ATM card extraneous, and open-source software could simplify future upgrades. 

Making decisions about ATMs may never be easy, but given the variety of available choices, credit union leaders can and should find opportunities to generate value for their members.


Link to download report and summary slides.

Link to Infographic: Strategic Contexts for ATMS by Melissa K. Wrapp, PhD Candidate, Department of Anthropology, UC Irvine





Thursday, April 15, 2021

HUMA & IMTFI Book Launch (4/19) Disrupting Africa: Technology, Law, and Development


Join us! This Monday (4/19) 9amPT/12pmET/6pmSAST
HUMA-IMTFI book talk of the forthcoming Disrupting Africa: Technology, Law, and Development by Funmi Arewa, published with Cambridge University Press





"Elites, Ornamentation, and Future Visions" with Olufunmilayo B. Arewa 
Monday 19 April 9amPT/12pmET/6pmSAST

Introductory Remarks
Divine Fuh, HUMA Director

Panelists
Olufunmilayo B. Arewa, Temple University Beasley School of Law
Bill Maurer, UC Irvine, IMTFI Director
Rogers Orock, University of Witwatersrand

About the book
In the digital era, many African countries sit at the crossroads of a potential future that will be shaped by digital-era technologies with existing laws and institutions constructed under conditions of colonial and post-colonial authoritarian rule. In Disrupting Africa, Olufunmilayo B. Arewa examines this intersection and shows how it encompasses existing and new zones of contestation based on ethnicity, religion, region, age, and other sources of division. Arewa highlights specific collisions between the old and the new, including in the 2020 #EndSARS protests in Nigeria, which involved young people engaging with varied digital era technologies who provoked a violent response from rulers threatened by the prospect of political change. Using materials from extensive archival research, Arewa demonstrates how lawmaking and legal processes during and after colonialism continue to frame contexts in which digital technologies are created, implemented, regulated, and used in Africa today.

About the author
Olufunmilayo (“Funmi”) Arewa is the Shusterman Professor of Business and Transactional Law at Temple University Beasley School of Law. She received an M.A. and Ph.D. (Anthropology) from the University of California, Berkeley, an A.M. (Applied Economics) from the University of Michigan, a J.D. from Harvard Law School, and an A.B. from Harvard College. Her research focuses on technology, music, film, business, and Africana studies. 

For enquiries and optional readings contact: huma@uct.ac.za or imtfi@uci.edu.