Tellers can now be empowered to play a vital role in marketing banking products and services.

If banks want to sell third-party financial products (mutual funds, insurance) to its customers, its staff should be free enough to do that, right? How can a teller, for example, sell a mutual fund if he has to count a bunch of notes three times before giving it to a customer?

Sensing a business opportunity here, CashLink Global Systems Pvt Ltd (CGS), the Hardware & Services arm of HMA Group, in partnership with De La Rue (world's leading currency printing and cash & secure transaction group) has introduced machines known as `Teller Cash Dispensers' in India. These dispensers cost about Rs 7 lakh a piece, but the Managing Director of CGS, Mr Harish K Murthi, expects prices to come down once banks start placing bulk orders.

These cash dispensers help improve efficiency and boost productivity and make a teller an "investment consultant", says Mr Murthi. "Tellers can now be empowered to play a vital role in marketing banking products and services, strengthen customer relationship and hence build a better brand rather than spending their time in mundane tasks of counting, verifying, storing and managing currency," he told Business Line recently.

While on the security front, it reduces fraud and robbery, on the cost front, it reduces operating costs by increasing the speed and volume of transactions per teller, he said.

The product literature says that the machines can count up to 15 notes per second, "faster than the fastest ATM in the world".

The software can work with any other software of the bank. The machines do not demand ATM-quality notes. Two tellers can share one machine. Currency notes can be loaded in cassettes that can be secured with an electronic key.