Security cameras are often regarded as mundane, but technology is propelling them far beyond their traditional roles. That means credit unions have a lot of new things to think about if they want the return on their surveillance investments to be as high as possible.
With today's high-definition cameras and sophisticated video-analytics software, credit union surveillance systems now can analyze branch activity, tell the difference between people and objects, and even recognize faces.
That's broadening the applications for cameras in the average branch, and there are four things credit unions can do to stretch their surveillance dollars, according to Matt Frowert, who is the director of marketing for financial services and government at Tyco Integrated Security.
1. Use cameras to optimize staffing scheduling. “We're seeing financial organizations use video analytics along with the high-definition cameras to actually monitor customer behavior in a branch,” Frowert said. And because modern cameras and video-analytics software know what's a person and what's an object, it can be used to do basic traffic counts, he said. That means camera systems can now help credit unions make different staffing decisions during peak times, Frowert noted.
2. Look outside. High-definition cameras can help stretch the field of vision and may cover more square footage per camera, particularly with wrap-around, wide-angle lenses, Frowert said. “If you've got ATMs on the outside of your facility, obviously ATM skimming is a growing and challenging problem,” he said. “The ability to have cameras that are configured to cover the full range of the field of view around the ATM — that's going to help with that whole risk negation as well.” If a branch has a lot of drive-through traffic, consider putting cameras in the parking lot too, he advised.
3. Maintain the equipment. “What sometimes happens is, during the course of normal business you get focused on serving your members, and if there's no security issues, it might just happen where you just don't notice that a camera went down for some reason,” Frowert said. “Well, there could be a range of reasons, and it could be an easy fix or a more complicated fix. So that's why I think getting a regular scheduled maintenance and inspection is a best practice that is worthy of consideration for credit unions.”
“The actual lenses get cloudy,” he added, “so just doing things like cleaning — regular camera maintenance of any sort of chip-based system's important to ensure optimum performance and that there's minimal down time.”
4. Advertise it. There are a few schools of thought on whether to put up signs advising members that cameras are in use, Frowert said.
“My advice would be to say if there's investment in technology, it never hurts to let to somebody that's on the fence know about it,” he said. “There's sort of the hard-core, you're-never-going-to-change-them types. They're going to rob you no matter what defense you have. And then there are the note passers…people that are sort of unsophisticated, that are just down on their luck and this seems like their last hope to go, walk in and pass a note and hope to get some money. They're the ones that could be deterred by a last-minute sign that said, 'This site is under comprehensive surveillance.'”
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