19MARCH 2024or video conference with the security monitoring company. The app, in addition to enabling single-person opening, provides electronic notification when various activities are completed to all branch employees, keeps an audit trail, and provides employee notifications to other staff members and audio/video panic calls wherever the employee may be in the building. Integrating the technology is relatively straightforward, and the reduction in staffing more than offsets the cost of the service. Technology is also remaking the cash handling aspects of banking, as the traditional teller line is dramatically changing. The teller line, long a fixture in banking, provides both a work surface for tellers and an impediment to would-be thieves. By integrating technology into the teller line function, tellers can literally walk away from their teller station and provide vastly improved service. In this example, teller cash recyclers (TCRs) act as electronic tellers, counting the cash and verifying the amount for both deposits and withdrawals. Since it is integrated into the bank's accounting system, it provides a faster, more efficient process, effectively eliminating errors when handling cash. This has the added advantage of reducing time and effort. For a withdrawal, the TCR provides the cash required for the transaction and the teller simply hands it to the customer. With deposits, it functions similarly; the teller inserts the cash, and the TCR verifies the amount. Gone are the teller drawers and the constant manual counting of currency and moving cash from the teller line to the vault. By leveraging technology, financial service companies can reduce fraud and simplify audits. It is in customer service that the advantages become apparent to the customer and the bank's bottom line. The technology frees up team members to provide the human interaction and one-on-one counsel that makes a bank more valuable to customers while providing opportunities to reduce the staff required in the branch at any given time ­ a plus in current times when staffing shortages are creating challenges for all banks.These two technological advances alone can result in hundreds of thousands of dollars per year in savings to a mid-size bank while reducing fraud and theft and improving efficiency. The promise of technology, long utilized in online banking, is now making its mark on the physical world of financial services.About Mark BrownMark Brown, Chief Security Officer (CSO) for SouthState Bank, one of the leading regional banks in the Southeast, serves more than 1.2 million customers across Florida, Alabama, Georgia, the Carolinas, and Virginia. He has more than 20 years of experience in Information Technology and more than 18 years of experience in Information Security leadership. In addition to more than 18 years of experience in banking security and information security, Mark also held positions in academia for more than nine years at Polk State College, including teaching network engineering and business administration. Mark is a veteran of the U.S. Navy. He holds a bachelor's degree from the University of the State of New York and a master's degree from the University of South Florida School of Business. He also holds CISSP and CISM certifications.
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