This week’s Smart City roundup features a bank with no onsite tellers, the grand opening of Japan’s smart town, and a Smart City Award for the capital of Denmark.

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A teller-less Bank adopts automated services

In Farmington, Ontario County, you will find a unique banking model that caters to human interaction but has no onsite tellers. The Farmington branch of Generations Bank features five interactive teller machines, but people have the option of speaking to a live teller on screen. This branch also it has adaptive features such as a hand-held phone if the customers wants to discuss things in private.

When the bank is closed, the two ITMs in the drive-thru convert to traditional ATMs.

This isn’t the only smart feature of the Generations Bank, as it has a smart office where bank customers can sit and talk remotely with bank employees. It features two big screens which not only allow customers to see employees remotely, but also see documentation or a visual of the employee’s computer screen. Customers and employees can also share documents through printers and scanners.

Menzo D. Case, president and CEO of Generations Bank, stated that they plan to have all its branches fitted with the same technologies found in the Farmington branch.

Fujisawa Sustainable Smart Town opens in Japan

The grand opening of the Fujisawa Sustainable Smart Town was held near Tokyo, Japan. The Smart city project is the culmination of the collaboration between Panasonic Corp., Japanese real estate developer Mitsui Fudosan and Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Bank and 15 other companies.

Panasonic led the Fujisawa SST Council, whose main goal for the town is to “build a town seeking the ultimate ideal… we will build an actual smart town with 1,000 households”. Fujisawa SST Council’s website says that rather than simply “aiming to develop a town underpinned by advanced technology-based infrastructure,” the town will be one “based on actual lifestyles.”

The smart town aims to house around 3,000 people in 1,000 home in the 19-hectare property. People started moving in this past spring, and the recent grand ceremony marked the start of “full-scale operation.” The project is expected to be completed by 2018  at a cost of around $507.4 million.

The town will feature around 600 detached homes fitted with rooftop PV and energy storage systems, and residents will be given a choice between pure battery-based electricity storage and its fuel cell equivalent. Solar panels will also be installed on community buildings and shared spaces, a passive design of streets and public spaces for optimal energy management and a whole area for residents that do not own cars, complete with pooled vehicles for public use. If the project proves to be a success, Panasonic will consider replicating the model in other cities.

Copenhagen wins Best Project in Smart City Awards

Copenhagen, the capital of Denmark, has been awarded as the Best Project in this year’s Smart City Awards for its Copenhagen Connecting project. The project is the fruition of Cisco Systems, Inc. and the City of Copenhagen which utilizes data collected from municipal lighting, traffic signals, even garbage bins to reduce commute times and add economic value.

The project is expected to yield economic benefits upwards of $700,000.

photo credit: ViaMoi via photopin cc