BOSTON — That guy in the bank lobby, waving his arms like crazy? He may not be insane, just using Microsoft's Kinect motion controller.
The device, designed for hands-free games, can detect a user's body position and motions, allowing someone to control a computer or game console without a physical keyboard or controller. Since its launch late last year, the $150 device has been widely modified for use outside of gaming, including, now, in bank branches.
There, the applications may can provide a deeper digital marketing experience than most banks provide, the technology giant says.
In Russia, Bank of Moscow has used Kinect for in-branch displays. In a video that Microsoft posted to Facebook, a user is shown using hand motions from the street to interact with an in-branch video display. From the other side of a window, the user is able to scroll through several screens, holding his hand over specific areas to get more detail on certain topics.
"Banking is not a very sexy business, so if you [add] a little wow factor, that's good," said Gwenn Bezard, research director at Aite Group.
Several overseas banks have been piloting the technology to sell financial products, Bindia Hallauer, chief technology strategist for the worldwide financial services sector at Microsoft, said here at TowerGroup's annual financial services strategy and technology conference.
Several American retail banks are interested in using the Kinect technology in their stores, Hallauer said (she would not name them). But she said Microsoft is focused on working with banks with which it already has deep relationships.
"When Microsoft got into the seriousness of the business of digital marketing, we opened up a new relationship with our existing financial services customers, the ones we already had," Hallauer said. "Instead of selling to them, we started selling with them."
The benefit to banks, she said, is that Kinect provides a better level of engagement for customers than static displays do.
Hallauer said Kinect displays may someday involve on-screen avatars that recognize individual customers and make personalized product pitches to them.
Bezard said that might be taking the Kinect approach too far, and that avatars are not a suitable replacement for the human touch.
"In mobile technology, you need great technology, [but] in branches, you need great people," he said.
James Van Dyke, the president and founder of Javelin Strategy and Research, also was skeptical, saying the approach "could be a little 'Minority Report'-ish." In that movie retail stores used biometric scans to identify customers and make personalized offers.
Despite the futuristic allure of such systems, "we aren't seeing consumers indicate that they have anything different from very pragmatic interests in how they manage their finances," Van Dyke said. "It's possible there could be some people who are not comfortable with the technology, that might find it a little too intrusive."
Bob Meara, a senior analyst with Celent, wasn't keen on the idea, either.
"With transactions leaving the branch for self-service channels, banks must invest in key technologies to improve the efficiency, effectiveness and relevance of the branch channel," he said. "Microsoft Kinect, however, is not one of them. Kinect may have limited entertainment value, but isn't likely to help banks make the step-changes in retail operating models that are needed."
Hallauer said that Microsoft's pairing of Kinect with banks builds on its earlier work with banks for other products, such as Surface, a large multitouch table that can detect when and where items such as phones or smart cards are placed on it.
In 2009, Barclays PLC began testing the Surface table at its flagship branch in London's Piccadilly Circus.
The table allows customers to grab digital content with their hands and navigate information about banking services with simple hand gestures and touches.
The automated teller machine and kiosk maker NCR Corp. has promoted Surface as a new style of ATM. Users could type in instructions on a phone, which Surface would pick up, or interact directly with the table before getting cash from a nearby dispenser.
Hallauer said Bank of America Corp. uses a similar device in some of its U.S. branches, though she did not know which ones. A Bank of America representative confirmed it is using Surface in some branches but did not provide further details.
Bank of America has a long history of working with Microsoft, Hallauer said.
About a year ago, the bank began updating its website with search functions from Microsoft's Bing search engine. She said Bank of America indexed all of its financial products to make it easier for customers to search for loans they were interested in.
CommonWealth Bank of Australia and Royal Bank of Canada are also testing the Surface technology, Hallauer said.
