We've discussed how fancy "telepresence" studios and kiosks might someday have an impact on retail banking and brokerage [0]. Another step in that direction comes from IBM, which has developed a fancy new kiosk designed for bank branches. It allows customers to interact with a virtual teller in savvy ways. The new system, according to Finextra, was developed by the IBM Bari research laboratory in Italy. The goal is for the kiosks to support branch staff, but you can imagine some more aggressive applications. U.S. Banker notes that longer branch hours are correlated with higher deposit growth. The move toward more virtual services would play to banks that want to offer ultra-convenience as a marketing tool. At some point, do you need real live people on site? Maybe not.      

For more:
- here's the Finextra article [1] on IBM's virtual teller
- here's the U.S. Banker article [2]