SOUTH SIOUX CITY -- It's been a big year for Siouxland Federal Credit Union.
In January of 2020, they opened their new, 3,000-square-foot, full-service Southern Hills branch, at 4709 Southern Hills Dr. It was a relocation of their previous location in a strip mall in Sunnybrook.
In November, they installed new interactive teller machines (ITM) at their South Sioux City branch.
And early this year, the credit union -- which has about 20,000 members -- broke ground on a new Floyd Boulevard Branch.
Interactive teller machines
The ITMs in South Sioux City, which are staffed by a bank teller who appears on screen, replace the banks drive-thru teller windows. Five of them were installed in South Sioux City in November.
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One of the ITMs is inside the lobby, while the other four are outside, where customers can drive up and use them. The branch still has face-to-face tellers inside the lobby, and the technology didn't displace any Siouxland Federal employees.
Mike LaCroix, vice president of marketing and member experience at Siouxland Federal, said transactions at ITMs are quicker than at drive-thru teller windows -- the time spent waiting around has gone down by eight or nine seconds on average.
Reactions from customers have been mixed.
"You think you're going to get some positive and negative feedback, and you do. It's just funny that you see some of the people that you would imagine would be resistant to it, are the ones that fall in love with it," LaCroix said.
Siouxland Federal officials are still trying to determine when or whether other branches will get ITMs. "We're getting ready to build a Floyd branch, a new branch out on Floyd Boulevard, and those will get ITMs," LaCroix said.
LaCroix said COVID-19 was not the reason the credit union opted to adopt ITMs, which they'd been mulling since before the pandemic.
The machines feature a live teller on screen (the tellers work inside the Siouxland Federal building) and have somewhat the appearance of a late model ATM. They offer the same services as a teller window would without the pneumatic tubes, and can be used as an ATM if desired.
"It's kind of like being at the teller window, really," LaCroix said.
ATMs, which are different from ITMs in the sense that there is no person on the screen and the banking capabilities are somewhat limited, date back to the 1960s and are employed by virtually every bank. ITMs emerged within the last decade or so, and many banks have yet to implement the technology at their branches.
Banks may have some reason for taking the slow approach to adopting ITMs. The Credit Union Times, an industry publication, reported in March that 64 percent of bank customers still prefer an in-person interaction at a teller window.
Floyd Boulevard branch
On Feb. 2, Siouxland Federal announced they had broken ground on a new branch at 3095 Floyd Boulevard., near the Sonic restaurant.
Construction on the new branch, which will be the sixth in the metro, is expected to be completed by this summer, Siouxland Federal wrote in an announcement.
The 1,300-square-foot Floyd Boulevard branch will also have ITMs, like the South Sioux City branch, along with a 24-hour ATM. The branch will offer full banking services, including mortgages and consumer loans.
