NCR Corporation, a global leader in omni-channel solutions, today announced the winner of its second annual Idea Tank competition, Rivermark Community Credit Union’s Seth Schaefer. Schaefer and Rivermark were honored at NCR’s annual Innovation Conference in Washington, D.C. and will receive R&D resources to develop and pilot their idea with NCR.

Schaefer’s winning product idea, Simplified Member Authentication, was chosen for its unique approach to improving a time consuming and often impersonal process: how to securely authenticate members or customers in every channel, whether it be at an Interactive Teller Machine (ITM), ATM, in-person branch transaction, over the telephone, or with a loan officer. Each finalist’s entry was evaluated for its innovative approach and potential positive impacts to both the financial institution and customer experience.

The primary concept behind Simplified Member Authentication is to provide customers with a hassle-free member experience, increase the use of mobile banking, and improve employee efficiency and productivity. The concept was focused on delivering an Express Transaction that transforms a user’s device into a ‘branch in your hand’ that jump starts and streamlines any secure transaction.

“The Idea Tank is one of several ways in which we co-innovate with our customers. It is an opportunity for our inventive customer base of financial institutions to present solutions to problems they see every day, work with our Innovation Catalysts to refine the ideas, and partner with us to invent the future,” said Jose Resendiz, VP and GM of NCR Financial Services. “Seth’s spirited and thorough presentation creatively leveraged the customer’s own device to bridge the gap between channels, and we are looking forward to working with Rivermark to bring his idea to reality.”

NCR is also proud to honor the four finalists chosen alongside Rivermark: Gereen Langmeyer of Digital Federal Credit Union, Evan Westlake of Illinois National Bank, Joshua Allen of 1st Security Bank and Lynn Blotkamp of First Interstate Bank.

Earlier this year, NCR invited its entire digital banking customer base to present a compelling customer problem in the digital banking space and propose a solution that would effectively address that problem. These semi-finalists received training and coaching in Design Thinking from NCR’s Innovation Catalysts in order to further refine their idea and their pitch. From there, financial institution voting and a panel of NCR’s digital banking experts narrowed the field to a group of five finalists who pitched their idea to a panel of judges in front of their peers at the NCR Innovation Conference.

“NCR’s Idea Tank is an amazing opportunity for clients to share ideas that address consumer and financial institution pain points,” said Seth Schaefer, VP of Operations, Rivermark Community Credit Union. “Anyone who has visited a branch has experienced the awkward ‘prove your identity’ conversation – there’s a better way to know your customer and with NCR’s help we are building a solution to simplify the experience.”