PASADENA, Calif. -
That's what Fresno County Federal Credit Union determined when the success of its ATM deposit program was so great that the CU was struggling to keep up with the load.
With 44,000 members, 200 SEGs, including its bread-and-butter group of Fresno County employees, the credit union performs as many as 10,000 ATM transactions per month.
Fresno County SVP of Operations Jeff Bassill said the credit union has a 70% penetration rate for checking plus the "high touch" county workers SEG that likes to visit branches and use ATM for checking deposits. With that success also came six full-time employees who did nothing but process the ATM envelopes. Employees putting their hands on each and every envelope took time, money and even help from management.
"After a three-day weekend, I was pulling in branch managers to help," Bassill said.
Employees have to open each envelope, empty it, and then compare what's inside against what the member has keyed into the ATM for accuracy. Fresno County FCU turned to Wescom Resource Group's ATM deposit processing service in an effort to reduce costs and the drain on employee time and effort. Instead of opening each envelope, Fresno County ships off the deposits to WRG for processing. Cash is sent through a counterfeit sensor and posted that day, while the envelope and its contents are scanned and posted electronically for viewing online.
Automated electronic scanning reduces human error and file of adjustments (less cash than was written on the envelope, for example) is sent to the CU. Fresno County had previously hired a vendor to retrieve ATM envelopes each day, bring them to the CU where employees processed them before the entire kit was shipped off to WesCorp.
Bassill said another cost savings to the $435-million credit union came as the number of employees required to work with ATM envelopes dropped from six FTEs to only one person working three hours each day.
WRG President Kevin Sarber said credit unions that sign on to automate their ATM deposit processing can expect to cut their expenses in half as they reassign staff to other duties. Normally, manual deposit processing can cost from $1 to $1.50, which WRG can cut to a half dollar or 60 cents. Sarber said some credit unions have decided to use their savings for more ATMs to better serve the membership.
"Normally, it's about half the cost for us to process," he said.
Sarber and Bassill both said each credit union determines its own posting schedule for deposited checks and the level of risk it's willing to accept. Bassill said there will always be some level of risk with ATM check depositing, but the savings achieved by outsourcing the envelope processing more than offset any potential loss in cash. Bassill said Fresno County FCU has a normal hold for check envelopes of 24 hours with its proven 'loyalty' members rewarded with no holds administered on their checks.
"Anytime you turn over processing there's risk and you have to do your own due diligence. Over the last 18 months, it was probably the best partnership we've had," Bassill said.
