Patch Poll: Would You Turn to a Video Teller to Handle Your Banking?

So you're thinking about refinancing your mortgage, and you actually have a few minutes free to ask questions about rates.

Only problem: Those free minutes didn't open up in your schedule until after your neighborhood bank branch closed for the day.

Dollar Bank aims to help solve such problems for busy people, using new interactive services that will allow customers to turn to ATM machines with video connections to chat with a live teller. The Pittsburgh-based bank has more than 65 branches and loan centers in Western Pennsylvania and the Cleveland metropolitan area.

Dollar officials said they planned to install the video hookups in walk-up and drive-through ATMs at selected banks around the region this summer. Customers will use them to speak with tellers based at bank headquarters in Pittsburgh. 

Dollar will be the second bank in the United States to use the automated NCR APTRA Interactive Tellers, built and introduced in 2011 by NCR Corp. of Duluth, GA, and uGenius Technology of Sandy, UT., bank officials said.

"We have been evaluating this technology and now believe the video teller service can significantly improve the delivery of service for our customers," said Dollar President and CEO Robert Oeler. 

Dollar customers will be able to use the machines to make traditional ATM transactions or to use remote video to converse with a live teller about questions or services that once had to be handled in person. Bank employees initially will be available to demonstrate how the remote tellers work for customers at night and on weekends, according to Jim McQuade, Dollar's senior vice president of retail banking.

Michael O'Laughlin, senior vice president of NCR Financial Services, said the interactive teller enables banks to extend hours and serve customers "without losing that human touch."

But would you use the service?

Will you embrace the convenience of having folks available at your bank when you need them — even if you're having that conversation while standing on a sidewalk? 

Tell us in the comments.