Banks are a key vertical and video surveillance is central to solution

PHILADELPHIA—Several national security providers—among them Diebold, Stanley Security Solutions and Protection 1—say they'll be focusing on the financial and banking vertical market in 2013, and said video surveillance would be a central component of their offerings.

Why banking? For Diebold and Stanley, this vertical has been a focus for a long time.

Jeremy Brecher, Diebold VP security technology and integration, said that security is a part of every aspect of the retail banking environment including safes, retail transaction counters, ATMs, night deposit boxes and “electronic and logical security.” End users in this vertical value working with a company like Diebold that knows the sector well and understands their need for “risk mitigation and regulatory compliance,” he said.

John Nemerofsky, VP global vertical market solutions for Stanley, also touted his company's expertise in the vertical. He said Niscayah, which Stanley acquired in 2011, specialized in the sector. In addition, Stanley can provide a one-source solution with its “automated doors to mechanical locking solutions to intrusion protection and video surveillance.”

Lisa Ciappetta, Protection 1's senior director of marketing, said P1 is focusing on this sector because many regional and national banks “are ready to make the switch to a new provider who can offer them new technology along with better service.”

In addition to the high level of service this market needs, Protection 1 has technology that meets strict specifications of the banking market, Ciappetta said.

“We have recently completed development work that allows instantaneous changes to user permissions and parameters of IP-enabled burglar alarm panels,” she said.

And P1's video technology meets the “encryption and archived recording standards while producing high-quality images that don't cripple [a user's] IT network with bandwidth consumption,” she said.  

Nemerofsky said Stanley owns technology solutions ideal for the financial sector, such as the OneProx global reader and Pacom access control solutions.

On the video front, “our eVideo cloud-hosted video solution has really taken off as it is an effective way to support more cameras without the capital expense of more DVRs or ever-increasing DVR storage,” he said.

Brecher said banks are looking for fraud mitigation for physical and logical devices, and Diebold provides anti-skimming and intrusion detection for that.

Among Diebold's video services that banks are using are “alarm video verification, license plate recognition and video integration within banking operations such as ATMs, drive-up lanes and teller transactions,” he said.

In general, demand for Diebold's managed and hosted services is increasing, Brecher said.

For financial institutions, having a partner that can administer and manage video across geographically divergent sites “is critical to operational efficiency,” he explained.

Getting more value out of the security investment is the trend in banking and other verticals and video offers “one of the broadest opportunities to positively impact other areas of branch operations,” Brecher said. “It can help the financial institution do things like increase branch efficiency, improve guard service productivity and enhance customer satisfaction.”

Ciappetta said banking customers want video solutions “with open standards that can be managed by their existing IT infrastructure. They want technology that includes automated health monitoring and diagnostics, policy-based video distribution, and versatile investigation capabilities.”  

She believes there will be more use of video analytics in banks. “Analytics software housed in edge devices allows for flexible applications per device, whether for customer service applications or to help identify potential breaches and enable faster, more proactive decision-making,” she said.

Nemerofsky said that banking customers with cloud video are asking for longer storage times and higher resolution. He also sees demand increasing for cloud-based video analytics “to track throughput, queue wait times, display lingering, etc. By providing analytics in the cloud, customers gain efficiencies in capital spending and increased customer experience insight.”