The cash machine is surely one of the greatest advances of its time. It provides a reliable, secure and convenient way to withdraw, transfer and deposit funds from your checking or savings account from virtually anywhere: Longyearbyen, Norway, to McMurdo Station, and the Dead Sea to the sports bar around the corner.
But when the actual experience doesn’t live up to the expectation, the consequences can be disastrous — for the customer and the bank.
For China Minsheng Bank Corp. (CMBC), falling short of expectations isn’t an option. Currently, CMBC is China’s first privately-held commercial bank with nearly $89 million in cash on hand. And in 2011 the bank reported a 58 percent increase in net profit for its shareholders.
“China has seen economic growth that is virtually unfettered, which has led to a wealth of opportunities for CMBC and its customers,” says He Xiaojie, who works in the Information Specialist of Technology Department at CMBC.
He says that a centerpiece of CMBC’s business strategy has been to provide superior banking and investment services for private enterprises, small and micro-enterprises, and high-end retail customers. To this end, among the bank’s most valuable assets are 40,000 employees working at corporate headquarters and at branches across China. So are the bank’s cash machines.
Harnessing growth by delivering value
Many customers limit their interactions to the cash machine, and as government reforms bring increased competition, the bank is working with Microsoft partner Nantian Electronics Information to provide an even better automated experience. Together, CMBC and Nantian are building an intelligent banking system that will interconnect more than 30,000 bank terminals, 4,000 cash machines and other peripheral devices, all powered by Windows Embedded Standard.
With Windows Embedded Standard, these devices can send transaction data to CMBC’s data centers in Beijing — data such as the type of business, type of customer and the deposit volume. Here, bank executives can get a real-time assessment of customer activities and cash flow, identify opportunities for new service offerings, and quickly roll out those new services to customers without compromising the stability of the user experience.
With CMBC’s new solution in place, customers benefit from a banking experience that is more secure, easier to use and provides access to financial information whenever they need it, whether getting assistance from a bank teller or using a self-service kiosk.
Better back-end banking processes
In addition to driving improvements to the customer experience, the Windows Embedded solution helps streamline business and IT management processes. For example, the ability to install updates and manage devices remotely — rather than having to physically touch every single machine — could save as much as 3,000 RMB in travel costs for each of the bank’s 2,000 kiosks. And reduced maintenance could save an additional 20,000 hours of labor at 50 RMB per hour. All told, that adds up to annual savings of 7 million RMB ($1.1 million).
With Windows Embedded Standard as the platform, CMBC has also experienced a 10 percent increase in uptime, which also contributes to the bank’s growth.
Says He: “The new system is more stable, and we’re experiencing fewer breakdowns. Consequently, IT can channel more time toward other projects, which lowers the total cost of ownership of the system and helps us drive continued growth.”
To read more about how Windows Embedded is powering the Internet of Things across major industries, visit our website; and for the latest news on Windows Embedded, visit our newsroom.
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