Thursday 14 June 2012

7-Eleven's Vcom self-service banking


7-Eleven have Vcom ('virtual commerce') self service machines in thousands of stores in the US. These offer cash, paying in cheques and transferring money for many banks, cheques cashing, etc.

7-Eleven first began exploring the idea of expanding its financial services in 1994. It already offered some financial services, including ATMs and money orders. Its original effort, involving manned centers, generated positive results, with an incremental lift in sales at the 25 Texas locations where it was offered. However, it was too expensive to staff the centers.

7-Eleven began working with NCR in 1998 and created a kiosk that offered money orders and money transfers as well as standard ATM transactions. The original kiosks, which were an unwieldy 9 feet long, were installed in 37 stores in Austin, Texas. The two companies refined the kiosks, shrinking them to 5 feet, before adding them to another 57 locations in Texas and Florida. In July of 2001, check cashing was added.

Offered through 7-Eleven partner Certegy, check cashing has become Vcom's "killer app". By 2002, approximately 12,000 checks were cashed each month at the first 94 locations.

The key business drivers are the ATM surcharge and check cashing. The others are opportunities for incremental revenue.

Not clear what the full current range of services are - could investigate further.

Image source: http://www.atmmarketplace.com/article/136346/7-Eleven-s-Vcom-wins-raves-at-RD
Info: Richard Watson's article in Fast Company, here
Interview in article on ATM Market place, here

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