Brokaw, Wisconsin has a population of 280.  It is in the center of the
state near Wausau.  The article shows that talking ATM's are affordable,
even for very small financial institutions in rural communities.

Kelly

http://www.cues.org/fyi/n90402.htm

Trio of Talking ATMs By Lyman Cline September 4, 2002

This is bonus coverage from " Time for New Flavors" in the September 2002
issue of Credit Union Management, p. 56.


Brokaw Credit Union didn't set out to install "talking" ATMs, but we are
very glad we did. We had assumed that ATMs, let alone ATMs with speech
capabilities, would be out of the price range of a $30
million/8,200-member credit union in a saturated ATM market. We were
pleasantly surprised.

A user inserts a headset into a Triton ATM.

Low-Cost Alternative Brokaw CU serves Marathon and southern Lincoln
counties in Wisconsin. During informal discussions, our members had
indicated they would like us to offer ATMs. While we wanted to comply, we
were concerned that we might not generate enough transaction volume to
justify the machines' cost.

During a discussion with the sales agent for ATM distributor Cash
Resources, Centennial, Colo., (Harington Group Inc.), Mary Zillman,
senior vice president at Brokaw CU, discovered a low-cost retail ATM
manufactured by Triton, Long Beach, Miss., that is designed to be
installed inside convenience stores, gas stations, restaurants and the
like. The dial-up ATM connects to the network only when customers want to
use it, and is smaller than the kind of ATM typically installed outside a
credit union. It also costs about a fifth as much as a larger ATM.

An added bonus was the Triton ATM's ability to talk. We purchased three
in May, installing two ATMs in convenience service stations and one in a
sports bar mid-summer. After a month, we are confident the transaction
volume will pay for our investment in the machines.

The talking ATMs will allow Brokaw CU to serve members (and non-members)
we may not have reached-those who are visually impaired or who have
difficulty reading due to dyslexia or illiteracy.

To use the ATM, the member can plug in earphones (that they carry with
them or pick up at the site) to listen to transaction options rather than
having to see what is displayed on the screen. Using earphones ensures
member privacy as transaction information is repeated audibly to the user
along with receipt information, including the customer's account balance
if available. Complete audio instruction for use of the ATM is also
available. In addition, the keypad has a dot on the five for orientation.

RESOURCES For more information on the new ADA regulations as they relate
to ATMs, see this white paper by Bill Jackson, chief technology officer
at Triton.

See the online archive of articles about ATMs.

In addition, the new ATMs comply with the proposed ADA regulations slated
to be presented to the Department of Justice in the near future. The
final regulations are expected to mandate that "machines shall provide
visual and audible instructions for operation" and may require ATM
operators to upgrade or retrofit many of the 325,000 existing ATMs in the
United States.

Benefits Both Credit Union and Members For Brokaw CU, installing talking
ATMs made sense. The retail ATMs were a great value and, if the
transaction volumes at any of the current locations should change, we can
remove the ATM and place it in another location.

Although the speech capability is an advantage we hadn't initially
considered, we see many benefits. It enables any members or
non-members-whether blind, illiterate, barely literate, dyslexic, or
those who simply have difficulty reading the text on an ATM-to have a
self-service method for interacting with our credit union.

Between 10 and 11 million Americans are legally blind and, while there
are no exact figures on the numbers of dyslexic and illiterate Americans,
national literacy organizations estimate the functional illiteracy rate
as high as 20 percent of the U.S. population. Chances are very good you
have members who would be thrilled to finally have ATMs they could use.

After this experience, what advice would we offer other credit unions?
List of 1 items . If you're in the market for ATMs, look into upcoming
regulations and make sure what you're buying won't require an upgrade in
a year. list end List of 1 items . Ask your current ATM vendors about
their speech technology capabilities. list end List of 1 items
. Carefully evaluate available ATM purchases in the context of both cost
and income potential. list end List of 1 items . Make sure you consider a
variety of ATM options, including innovations offered by non-traditional
suppliers, and then choose the solution that will work best for you. list
end

Lyman Cline is president of $30 million Brokaw Credit Union, with 8,200
members in Brokaw, Wis.


VICUG-L is the Visually Impaired Computer User Group List.
To join or leave the list, send a message to
[log in to unmask]  In the body of the message, simply type
"subscribe vicug-l" or "unsubscribe vicug-l" without the quotations.
 VICUG-L is archived on the World Wide Web at
http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/vicug-l.html