Ensenta: A Truly Innovative Technology Company
May 2010
Last month I had the opportunity to sit down and “Catch Up With CO-OP.” This time I thought it might be interesting to talk about an industry-leading organization that plays a little behind the scenes. We all know CO-OP primarily due to their product and service offerings related to shared branching Kiosk, front-end capture and ATM activity among other things. This month I was able to sit down with Jim Ballagh, VP of Business Development at Ensenta Corporation. Ensenta is the engine behind some of these services at CO-OP.
Ensenta Corporation is the culmination of a vision by three high-tech individuals operating out of California’s Silicon Valley: Ed Viera, President; Jim Ballagh, VP Business Development and Richard Klein, VP of Technology. These three brought their extensive experience in software development, finance, retail and consulting backgrounds together to form Ensenta and begin offering unique and visionary products to the credit union space. Jim told me that the real key to success is combining these innovative products with a “service mentality.” Service to Ensenta is a core belief and expressed in two primary ways: First, always listen to the customer, and second, always be agile. Holding these two core beliefs in a setting where the focus is on outstanding service and quality control, Ensenta is emerging as the leading SaaS (Software as a Service) self-service provider for credit unions. Ensenta is both relevant now and will be well into the future.
I asked Jim what he feels is the primary differentiator between Ensenta and their competitors in the market today. He told me that Ensenta products all revolve around allowing financial institutions to centrally monitor and process transactions that originate from a wide range of sources: kiosks, ATMs, home scanners, branch scanners, and more. In the ATM arena alone Ensenta technology drives more than 2,200 convenience store ATMs. Ensenta Self-Service Kiosks are “state-of-the-art” in the industry today.
So how far ahead of the game is Ensenta? I put the question to Jim this way: “We hear this ‘software as a service’ and ‘cloud computing’ all of the time. Do you really expect me to believe that there is a significant difference in the Ensenta approach?”
Jim smiled and responded: “Look at image ATMs. Next to Bank America, Wells, and Chase, Ensenta is the largest provider of image-enabled ATMs, and that is largely through the CO-OP Shared Deposit Network at select 7-Eleven locations. Others are certainly talking about this technology, but Ensenta is delivering it!”
What is the most recent development at Ensenta? CO-OP has announced an expansion of their “My Capture” program to now include Branch Capture – all driven by the Ensenta engine, running on the same platform as Image ATM and Home Capture. Credit unions and their members have the same high-quality experience regardless of channel.
I asked Jim about the future. “What’s in store for us in the coming year?” I got no comment there. You’d think I was talking to a representative from Apple! But I have the feeling we will be seeing more innovative products coming from Ensenta – products that will help the credit union industry both increase efficiencies and control costs going forward.
Interested in learning more? Contact Ensenta directly at: (650) 288-1131 or check their website at: ensenta.com
Ensenta Corporation is the culmination of a vision by three high-tech individuals operating out of California’s Silicon Valley: Ed Viera, President; Jim Ballagh, VP Business Development and Richard Klein, VP of Technology. These three brought their extensive experience in software development, finance, retail and consulting backgrounds together to form Ensenta and begin offering unique and visionary products to the credit union space. Jim told me that the real key to success is combining these innovative products with a “service mentality.” Service to Ensenta is a core belief and expressed in two primary ways: First, always listen to the customer, and second, always be agile. Holding these two core beliefs in a setting where the focus is on outstanding service and quality control, Ensenta is emerging as the leading SaaS (Software as a Service) self-service provider for credit unions. Ensenta is both relevant now and will be well into the future.
I asked Jim what he feels is the primary differentiator between Ensenta and their competitors in the market today. He told me that Ensenta products all revolve around allowing financial institutions to centrally monitor and process transactions that originate from a wide range of sources: kiosks, ATMs, home scanners, branch scanners, and more. In the ATM arena alone Ensenta technology drives more than 2,200 convenience store ATMs. Ensenta Self-Service Kiosks are “state-of-the-art” in the industry today.
- Real-time Transactions. With the kiosk and the consumer and soon merchant and mobile remote deposit capture channels, Ensenta utilizes the shared branching network and its own robust risk algorithms to authorize deposits in real time. Ensenta leverages existing credit union technology.
- Software as a Service (SaaS). Ensenta’s web-based EZAdmin back-office is an SaaS, similar to corporate e-mail and other enterprise-wide solutions that leverage software applications over the web from a central server. No software required. No need to purchase and manage onsite servers. And, product upgrades and security enhancements are frequent and fast.
- Robust Risk Assessment. Ensenta customers consistently report that the number one reason they choose Ensenta image products is that the risk assessment tools are outstanding. Each and every image is subjected to a robust risk algorithm featuring more than 100 negotiability and image quality risk factors. And most importantly, the credit union can configure risk policies that meet its own risk tolerance profile. Risk is the number one concern in remote deposit capture environments and Ensenta knows how to manage risk.
- Online Review and Adjustment. Ensenta’s web-based EZAdmin marries the best of automated and human review processes. Once an item has been accepted, the credit union’s staff can do a secondary review and analyze and correct as needed flagged/exception images in the online review queue throughout the day, and then transport images electronically via an image cash letter (X9.37 file) to WesCorp at the credit union’s selected cut-off time. Again, Ensenta leverages existing credit union technology and has sent tens of thousands of image cash letters to WesCorp over the last four plus years.
- One Process, Multiple Deposit Channels. The Ensenta Imaging Suite, developed with CO-OP FS and WesCorp, includes multiple deposit channels: Retail (2,000 shared ATM deposit 7-Eleven locations); Fast Branch (credit union-owned, “on-us” and shared branching kiosks); hundreds of image-enabled NCR and Diebold ATMs; remote deposit capture (RDC – consumer/home, merchant and soon mobile); Branch and soon Teller capture. Images from all channels flow through EZAdmin. This commonality means lower acquisition costs, quicker implementations, minimal training, and more efficient operations – not to mention duplicate detection across channels.
So how far ahead of the game is Ensenta? I put the question to Jim this way: “We hear this ‘software as a service’ and ‘cloud computing’ all of the time. Do you really expect me to believe that there is a significant difference in the Ensenta approach?”
Jim smiled and responded: “Look at image ATMs. Next to Bank America, Wells, and Chase, Ensenta is the largest provider of image-enabled ATMs, and that is largely through the CO-OP Shared Deposit Network at select 7-Eleven locations. Others are certainly talking about this technology, but Ensenta is delivering it!”
What is the most recent development at Ensenta? CO-OP has announced an expansion of their “My Capture” program to now include Branch Capture – all driven by the Ensenta engine, running on the same platform as Image ATM and Home Capture. Credit unions and their members have the same high-quality experience regardless of channel.
I asked Jim about the future. “What’s in store for us in the coming year?” I got no comment there. You’d think I was talking to a representative from Apple! But I have the feeling we will be seeing more innovative products coming from Ensenta – products that will help the credit union industry both increase efficiencies and control costs going forward.
Interested in learning more? Contact Ensenta directly at: (650) 288-1131 or check their website at: ensenta.com