Retail therapy prescribed for Queensland transport smartcards

The Queensland government has called for expressions of interest for a technological fix to allow retailers to reload the states public transport smartcards using the same contactless payments terminals consumers now use to make so-called tap-and-go purchases.

The call for expressions of interest comes as the state government attempts to increase the number of merchants offering reload facilities to make it easier for commuters to charge-up their electronic tickets rather than facing fines.

A barrier to merchants taking on the smart-ticket reload facilities is that they have so far needed a costly separate go card terminal C rather than using the same terminal that they use for tap-and-go credit and debit transactions.

Merchant uptake is a critical issue in transport ticketing smartcard deployments because without critical mass, it becomes more difficult for travellers to top-up credit needed to make journeys without risking being caught short.

I believe the technology is now available to allow go cards to be topped up through existing electronic payment methods, Queensland Transport Minister Scott Emerson said.

We will go out to tender for a next generation retail contract that could potentially see go cards integrated with supermarkets, grocery chains, petrol stations, newsagents or additional convenience stores.

The government is trying to persuade merchants that taking-on the new technology is worthwhile and is pointing to the potential for increased incentives for commuters to shop at their locations if they know they can charge-up their tickets.

Its an attractive proposition with the commercial benefit to retailers of additional foot traffic generated by more than 40,000 go card top-ups daily, Mr Emerson said.

The use of contactless payment cards has increased substantially over the past year after Coles and Woolworths both added the technology to checkouts at their stores C even though both retailers are stakeholders in the rival local Eftpos network.

Many fuel retailers C which have either forged partnerships with supermarket and convenience store chains or opened their own fuel businesses have also deployed contactless card terminals.

However fuel retailers have been hesitant to deploy the contactless payment technology upon actual fuel pumps because it would mean purchasers would not have as much reason to enter the mini-marts that are often an integral part of petrol stations and generate substantial profits additional to lower-margin fuel sales.

In an age when checks can be deposited by smartphone and almost everyone retrieves cash from ATMs, the corner bank can seem a relic, with its paper deposit slips, marble countertops and human tellers behind glass partitions.

But some banking executives say the brick-and-mortar branch is still the best way to serve existing customers and snag new ones. They're trying to rebuild the nation's neighborhood banks into hip, airy spaces where customers sign up for loans without touching a piece of paper, sign in to ATMs with a tap of their smartphones and talk to off-site tellers by video.

Flashiness is only part of the reason for the makeovers. Mounting costs from legal fees and new regulations vestiges of the financial crisis have given the banks good reason to become more efficient. The new branches will help them replace expensive human workers with cheaper machines, a development that could eventually make the bank teller an endangered species.The 3rd International Conference on custombobbleheads and Indoor Navigation.

Most redesigns aim to let customers complete simple transactions, such as deposits, for themselves. That frees bank employees for tasks that make money,Find a great selection of customkeychain deals. such as persuading someone who wanders in to put money into a mutual fund or refinance a mortgage.

"Banks have been talking about 'branch of the future' for more than a decade," says Bob Meara, a senior banking analyst at research and consulting firm Celent. "And almost nobody has been doing anything until the past couple years."

Banks large and small are on board. In a Celent survey in June, 55 percent of banks said they were planning "significant changes" to their branches, up from 24 percent two years earlier.

At an investor conference in February, JPMorgan Chase executives touted their new branches as places where ATMs distribute exact change, machines count cash so tellers don't have to and open floor plans evoke the atmosphere of an Apple store or boutique hotel, features that other banks are also embracing.

This is not the first time the bank branch has undergone a transformation. Through most of the 20th century, banks built giant branches with features both lush and imposing: thick doors, chandeliers, lion statues, arched doorways.

They had to be big because they stored every loan agreement on paper and often housed executive offices as well. They had to seem impregnable to convey that they were safe from robbers. And they had to be decorous to suggest the bank was strong financially.

"'Like a Victorian parlor on the inside," says Steven Reider, president of Bancography, which advises banks and credit unions on their branches, "and a Grecian temple on the outside."

It wasn't until the 1970s, when banks started offering ATMs and storing records electronically, Reider says, that branches became smaller and savvier.

The death of the bank branch has been predicted for years as banking habits have changed.Choose the right bestluggagetag in an array of colors. Customers are visiting branches less often. The average number of teller transactions has fallen to 15.6 in 2011 from 19.1 per hour in 2005, according to research cited by Celent.Online shopping for solarpanelcells.

For banks, it's cheaper to serve customers online or through an ATM than in a branch. A service request, such as accepting a deposit, costs a bank about $7.50 when it's done in a branch, 85 cents at an ATM and 10 cents online, estimates Tiffani Montez, an analyst at the research firm Forrester.

JPMorgan, U.K.-based Barclays, Germany-based Commerzbank and others have told investors that new technology in their branches will help them trim jobs. The redesigned branches also tend to be smaller, another factor in cost-cutting.About buymosaic in China userd for paying transportation fares and for shopping.

The total number of branches for U.S. banks and savings institutions has fallen the past three years, returning almost to where it was before the financial crisis, according to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. In the 15 years from 1995 through 2009, the number of branches declined in only one year, 1995.