M&T Bank and TCF deploy S1 teller technology

M&T Bank has deployed S1 Teller as the bank's mTell solution at more than half of its 645 branches. The Bank began the deployment in September 2005 and continues to rapidly deploy the branch automation solution at a rate of about 18-34 branches per week with a target of completion for mid-summer 2006. Prior to beginning the implementation process, M&T Bank outlined a number of customer service and operational objectives it expected to achieve following deployment. According to Mike Shryne, senior vice president retail operations for M&T Bank, the project has already met and surpassed a number of objectives, including a reduction in training time on the teller system operations from three days to approximately one half day. The bank also anticipates a significant lift in commercial income fees over and above its business case in deployed branches - early results are showing as much as 33 percent.

"One of the biggest benefits of the new mTell solution is its integration with back-office item processing systems that automates the power-encoding of checks. We no longer have to manually encode every check via the proof process, as this process is now fully automated. This capability alone will save M&T Bank over $1 million in expenses annually," commented Shryne.

The new mTell solution provides tellers with a number of automated features that enable fast, accurate information and immediate completion of the customer's transactions. mTell also talks to all of the Bank's back- office systems and gives tellers a view across all interactions and improves accuracy with the assurance that all transactions will be done right the first time. The Bank's deployed branches are seeing the error rates plummet and expect mTell to reduce its mis-posted transactions by 68 percent. The Bank also added another level of protection to accounts by setting the system up to do automated searches against other applications for fraud to give customers a higher level of security against fraudulent activity.

TCF, an S1 customer since 1993, also recently deployed the S1 Teller and S1 Sales and Service Platform solutions as an upgrade to the bank's branch technology infrastructure. All of TCF's 453 branches throughout the Midwest are operating with the new branch automation solutions in place. The Bank's main goal was to bring its current technology up to speed by implementing a Windows-based solution that would not only replicate the service they offered already, but also enable the Bank's tellers and customer service representatives to focus more on interacting with the customers and less on operating a system.

"This was TCF's largest IT project undertaken to date, and the S1 Teller and Sales and Service solutions were implemented without flaw," said Tim Doyle, senior vice president retail functional management for TCF. "We had a very aggressive deployment schedule, with an average of 28 branches being brought up on the new system per week, and throughout the entire deployment we heard only positive comments from our branches and bankers on the simplicity and intuitiveness of the solutions."

The Bank's branch operations team received very positive feedback from across its branch network on how simple the solutions are to use and how much faster it is to train employees with more streamlined and intuitive systems. As part of the deployment and training of the solutions, TCF also developed a special newsletter to highlight and emphasize the features/functions of the system that make it easier for bankers to complete job functions. The newsletter included the following highlights:

- Account Services: The system provides for a guided account opening process that includes pre-determined list of values from drop down menus, making it easier to open customer's accounts and comply with Bank Secrecy Act Customer Identification Program requirements. A more intuitive system helps to focus more attention on the customer's new account needs.
- Transaction Code Descriptions: A list of transactions and associated descriptions makes it much easier than remembering transaction codes.
- Error Correct: Correcting transactions from the Electronic Journal is much easier.
- Account Opening Process: TCF can open multiple accounts with one session and the system will automatically pre-populate the customer's information to make the subsequent account fulfillment process much more streamlined.
- Balancing: The streamlined balancing allows minimal input and any "overs" or "shorts" are automatically posted, the system knows which general ledger to run.

"S1 continues to be an exceptional partner," said Gregg Goudy, executive vice president information technology for TCF. "We look forward to continuing to work with S1 on multiple projects over the next few years."