Till a few years ago, it was difficult to believe that banking could be on your fingertips. Today, a mobile handset with a connection is all you need to make a banking transaction. Morever, ATMs, net banking and SMS banking has made sure that you don’t need to visit a branch for your banking needs. So is that the end of innovation in banking?

Not really. Cisco’s future bank branch promises to make transactions even easier. Packed with a combination of technologies — including radio frequency identification (RFID) tags, application-oriented networking (AON) solutions, video telephony and digital signages, the bank of tomorrow promises to make interaction simpler and more secure.

Headquartered in San Jose, California, Cisco designs and sells networking and communications technology and services. It is in the process of making the future happen. In the not so distant future, as soon as a customer walks into the bank, even before the customer identifies himself, the RFID enabled ATM card would identify the customer to customer service officer at the bank. Very few customer in India have RFID enabled ATM cards as it’s usually given to very high net worth individuals at present. The AON technology would instruct surveillance cameras to take the picture of the customers which will pull out the customer profile from customer relationship management database placing it on the customer service officer mobile tablet PC and branch manager's IP phone (internet protocol-enabled phone).

In the future, a customer could get several issues resolved from an IP phone. A phone-based kiosk would allow customers to swipe their card and use the IP phone for non-cash transaction, much like the phone-banking service offered at present.

Cisco has also included digital media systems or digital signages, in its development, which could be a revenue generator for banks. A bank can market its various financial services products with the next stop being the Cisco Unified MeetingPlace Express, an integrated voice, video, and web conferencing solution that is deployed over networks.

Cisco’s Unified Personal Communicator is a solution that easily accesses voice, video, instant messaging, web conferencing, voicemail, and presence information from a single, multimedia interface on your PC or Mac. It helps connect with colleagues, partners, and customers in office or on the go. All this may sound a bit esoteric at present, but it won’t take us long to get used to the bank of the future. After all, interacting with a machine for banking needs sounded quite esoteric, not that long ago.

The writer is a freelance journalist