Retrofitting Older Banks Exposes Construction Challenges
Having acquired many hundreds of aged banking facilities, Fifth Third is often faced with completely gutting the prior entity’s alarm system, which might be 30 to 50 years old.

“Most of the problems in retrofitting older facilities are the construction techniques used at the time the building was done,” Benson says. “Are there cross members in the walls? Are the walls filled with … God knows what.” 

Beyond the corporate policy of not bringing in legacy equipment because of service issues, Fifth Third almost exclusively installs electric door strikes in its facilities. “That way they don’t have to worry about NFPA [National Fire Protection Association] fire codes getting in the way,” Benson says. 

As needed, the versatile Verex panels are outfitted with an eight-door control module in the branch facilities. Monitored electric strikes
are wired with four-conductor, 18-gauge unshielded cable. Card readers, six-conductor overall shielded cable. 

Typically, Benson says, a magnetic lock will either require a request exit motion or a request exit button, plus an emergency override so that the door can be operated with one hand. “We endeavor to avoid mag-locks like the plague,” he says. 

By using an electric strike with a mechanical egress, all it takes to get out of the building is either push on the crash bar or turn the handle.

“So,” Benson continues, “the challenges we find in doing older facilities, is the door jamb compatible to putting an electric strike in? Is the door hardware something we can replace with something to be able to hook it into an electric strike?” 

Migration From 100% Dial-Up to 3 Layers of Protection
About four years ago, Fifth Third Bank’s access control relied 100 percent on dial-up connection to its central command station. Today, more than half of the bank’s facilities ride on its network backbone. The bank uses three layers of communication to prevent interruption of its mission critical access control, with analog and digital cell lines for backup.

“If an alarm is triggered, and if that panel is on IP, it will go from the branch to the central station in less than 1 second,” Benson says. 

The bank integrates nearly 1,000 DVRs, located onsite at many of its facilities, with the Verex system. The company’s Monitor ISM™ Director software provides full control, status and system configuration functionality to the central station. 

When an alarm is triggered, video automatically will come up on screen, in real-time, at the central station. 

“That could be tied to diagrams and layouts of the facility with actual photographic images,” says Tim Conner, a Midwest and national accounts sales manager with Verex. “It eliminates the need for firsthand knowledge of the facility and/or a paper record which may or may not reside in the location where it is needed at the time.” 

Hence, an operator who may be dealing with an event that is occurring in Florida can have an electronic description of the facility through a layout diagram and also a real-time video image of the facility at the central station in Cincinnati.

With monthly roundtable meetings, Neugebauer says the bank’s physical security department maintains a good working relationship with IT, which has helped to relieve network pressures that other organizations are feeling in this time of convergence.

“It is a big communication issue,” he says. “It’s network control calling us a week in advance when they have maintenance work on the backbone that is going to affect us.” 

To prevent any mishaps, all security networking on the backbone calls for the use of particular colored wire, used exclusively by physical security.“Then IT won’t use or remove that color of wire so they know it’s security equipment when they have to do maintenance on the hubs or routers,” Neugebauer says. “They know they can’t unplug a particular piece of equipment without prior arrangements with physical security because they know it belongs to security.” 

While access control currently resides on the bank’s existing network, Neugebauer says they are exploring alternatives for the not-too-distant future. 

“I think the first step to that is putting us on a subnetwork and then the next logical step would be our own network for security,” he says. “That is the path we are taking. It is our 5-year plan.”

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