Coming soon to a street corner near you -- Super ATMs
By Jay MacDonald • Bankrate.com

That mild-mannered automated teller machine you've come to rely upon for quick cash is about to become "Super-ATM," with the power to cash and print checks and sell you everything from money orders and prepaid phone cards to concert and airline tickets.

And while you wait for those services you can watch a special show on the screen.

"Super-ATM" will even talk to you.

What will it cost? Nominal transaction fees -- and, in some cases, a bit of your privacy. For check cashing, less than a storefront, more than a teller.

The full force of Madison Avenue, from video commercials to finely tuned target marketing, is barreling straight toward your neighborhood ATM. And it will be there within months, not years.

So, while you may soon be able to do a whole lot more with your ATM, your new super friend will be trying to sway your preferences in everything from cold remedies to mutual funds.

Here comes the future
Many of the whiz-bang features of the new Super-ATMs have actually been possible for some time, according to Rob Evans, director of marketing for NCR's self-service products in the Americas.

Machines that can print concert and airline tickets, deal you a few replacement checks or provide access to your accounts online have been relatively simple to develop, thanks to advancements in the self-service and computer industries. But it took market forces within the financial world to really spur development of the next-generation Super-ATMs.

"Bankers and brokerage firms tell us their primary challenge is driving cost out of their business," says Evans.

"The use of things like self-service devices that will cash checks or provide content over the Internet is really what is driving this. Customers have less time to go about the business of banking. They want to do it when they want, where they want. The rate of technological innovation has helped provide fine platforms to enable this. All these things are kind of co-conspiring at one time to enable us to do these things."

Dawn of the ATM-fomercial
One likely way that banks and independent operators aim to boost profits and pay for their new Super-ATMs is through advertising.

"This is all coming -- from static screen messages to full-motion video and couponing," says Ann All, editor of the industry publication ATMmagazine.com. "That is really going to take off in the next couple of years."

Banks and financial investment companies might use the same interface to tout everything from home loans to CDs when you use your new, improved ATM.

Super machine knows all
But there may be an ominous side to ATM advertising.

Remember those forms you filled out to open your bank account and apply for your car loan? Information such as that and other data about you is collected constantly, and it gets around. Even the operators of nonbank ATMs may know enough about you to sway your buying habits.

"The endgame for the ATM advertiser is the targeted marketing campaign," says All. "There, when you put your card into the machine, it identifies you and knows what you're interested in. The banks are really, really interested in this to cross-sell their products. A lot of the concern over taking things away from the teller was because, supposedly, the teller knew you and could help sell you other bank products."

In the near future, says All, your ATM card, once inserted into Super-ATM, will prod the machine to react, teller-like, by offering a service or product likely to appeal to you.

That will happen because the machine operators will know things such as "if you have a CD that is about to mature, if you have a college-age child, if you've paid off your car, if you're in the right demographic to be looking for a home or to refinance. Their hope is that this won't bother people, that they won't feel like Big Brother is looking over their shoulder, but instead that their bank is merely offering greater customer service," says All.

Delaying the inevitable
So what's holding up the future?

The Y2K scare and debate over ATM surcharges have slowed the rush to install the Super models. Then there's the price tag. While today's familiar cash dispensers cost $6,000-12,000, NCR's check cashing and Internet Super-ATMs run from $30,000-42,000, about average among the handful of Super-ATM suppliers.

But Lee Swanson, president of Check Central, an Oceanside, Cal., deployer of Super-ATMs, says banks are bullish on the next-generation automatic tellers.

"Banks look at this as increasing their market share. What they intend to do is go out to satellite facilities, such as grocery stores, without having to build brick and mortar buildings. By doing that, they offer services to their customers at other localities, and they can expand their hours as well. The economics work out to be pretty good for them."

Jay MacDonald is a freelance writer based in Florida

-- Posted: Nov. 9, 1999