Which road is the right one for the future?

Q2 reporting. Mobile banking in a van. Biometrics and AI. Touchless screens. You have to admit, there's a lot going on in this industry right now.

What about your company? Are you exploring touchless screens? Looking into ways to offer your customers a full range of services while keeping health and safety in mind? Putting up plastic shields in your branch? Putting in hand sanitizer stations and social distancing circles out in your bank lobby?

It seems just when we get one answer it leads to ten more questions. How will you handle your customers and staff? Will you offer face masks to the public? Maybe you're researching the best disinfectants for your fleet, or waiting to see if by chance, everything goes back to the old normal, instead of the new normal (a phrase I am truly getting tired of ).

A great perk of my job is to see all the amazing things people are doing in the industry. And considering that ATM vandalism and theft is on the rise, it's a good thing new and innovative ideas are being shared and explored.

One of the interesting ideas I am hearing about is QR or Quick Release codes. Companies are exploring this technology for ATMs especially in regards to touchless transactions for customers wishing to avoid touching an ATM screen.

A customer wanting to use an ATM would click on the bank's app on their phone and the app would provide a specific code that identified the user and the transaction they wanted, such as withdraw cash or deposit. Then the user just points their mobile device with the code at the ATM and the machine can identify the user and the transaction.

In addition to QR codes there's NFC or Near Field Communication codes. This is far more popular here in the U.S. and involves radio-frequency technology that transmits data between an NFC enabled device and an NFC tag.

In terms of payment cards, there's biometric cards payment cards that can read your fingerprints or biometric technology that can read your palm, your eye and even your face.

The point is there is a lot of technology out there, a lot of effort in creating newer, safer, environmentally sound ideas. How do you know which technology to go to, especially given that trade shows, which used to be the browsing ground for finding the new idea that would work best for your segment of the industry, may remain virtual for a long time in the future?

If you're concerned how to move forward, take a few suggestions from the theme parks and camps that have been struggling with these issues from lockdown to now. How can you socially distance at a camp? At a theme park? At a pool? How can those ideas benefit your company, your staff, your customers?

There are still so many paths to choose out there, finding the right one may seem overwhelming, but hang in there. We are all learning from each other and sharing the information is one of the best ways to weigh out the pros and the cons.