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cases to submit to law enforcement and better protect assets by setting alerts for suspects using facial similarity searches.
Heat mapping. This analytic creates heat maps and graphs that enable a branch to identify hot spots (areas that attract customers) and dead areas where no activ- ity occurs. A branch can use heat maps to track where customers linger, what they touch, where they walk and what they ig- nore. This allows individual branches to optimize their layouts like never be- fore—including where to place promo- tional literature, additional seating and even the complimentary coffee machine.
License plate recognition. This analytic automatically captures the license plate in real time, compares or adds it to a pre-de- fined list and then takes appropriate action such as generating an alert. Captured plate data can be used to identify motorists at drive-through teller stations and ATMs as well as for parking lot security and more. The analytics can also capture additional forensic detail like the make, model and color of the vehicle and, in some cases, an image of the driver.
People counter. This intelligent analyt- ic precisely monitors the flow of customer traffic throughout the day. It automatical- ly counts in real time the number of peo- ple passing under a camera and in which direction. A branch can use the statistics to determine optimal open hours and staffing needs. Analyzing traffic trends can also help the branch evaluate the impact of advertising and special promotions to draw customers into the premises.
Queue monitor. This intelligent ana- lytic captures real-time statistics about how long customers are waiting in line for teller or management services. It tracks the queue duration and queue fluctua- tions over the course of a day. By analyz- ing queue data, the bank can determine how many tellers and managers to have on certain days and times. This leads to better planning and more cost-effective staffing. Banks can set the queue thresh- old to prompt the opening of a new teller line when the number of customers in line exceeds the limit. This decreases custom- er wait time and creates a more positive banking experience.
The Optimum Place to Process Analytics
There are two ways to deploy video ana-
lytics: in the camera or on the server. The advantage of installing the analytics at the edge is that financial institutions can reduce bandwidth consumption and stor- age requirements at their branch locations. The advantage of installing analytics on the server is that it allows banks to central- ize the data and measure and compare re- sults across multiple locations. This could provide valuable information to identify the top performing branches.
On-board video analytics. As the pro- cessing power and storage capacity of net- work video cameras continue to increase, it becomes much easier to consider using on-board video analytics because the solu- tion can then be selectively deployed just in the areas where it’s needed. This option tends to be a much more cost-effective so- lution especially for financial institutions that don’t require real-time data compari- son across multiple locations.
Serve-based video analytics. A server- based solution will be more expensive but does allow for a more robust enterprise solution that can be deployed across mul- tiple locations. This method may be pre- ferred if data needs to be compared across a number of branches. The choice should be based on the ultimate needs of the fi- nancial institution.
Timely Tools for Inspiring Branch Innovation
Regardless of whether a video analytics solution is deployed on the network cam- era at the edge or on a server, analytics can be very powerful tools to help banks maximize value from their network video systems and gain deeper insight into their business. In some cases, these solutions may already exist but aren’t being used to their full potential. It’s important that physical security managers who are con- sidering migrating to this new technology share with their operations team how they, too, can profit from these tools.
As banks strive to be transformative, gathering valuable real-time performance data will be critical to achieving business optimization. Strategic use of video ana- lytics will help not only leverage resource spending, but will speed the process of making important business decisions.
Stephen Joseph is the business development manager for the banking and finance sector at Axis Communications Inc.
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