Banking & insurance
Sound masking in the bank branch
A branch rarely has a door. The advisory desk sits in the room, and the account number gets said out loud anyway.
Flyer · Banking
The Quell flyer to leaf through – and as a print version to download.
A line on the floor stops nobody from listening.
Modern branches are built open, and for good reasons. They feel welcoming, staff are approachable, nobody stands in front of a glass screen with a hole in it. The price is painted on the floor: a discretion line, a metre and a half short of the counter.
The line governs where the next customer waits. It does not govern what they hear. A loan conversation, a balance enquiry, a power of attorney after a death: none of that is something you want to pick up in passing, as a customer or as an adviser.
Then there is the formal side. Banking secrecy binds staff to confidentiality, and Article 32 GDPR asks for appropriate technical and organisational measures to protect personal data. A line on the floor is an organisational measure. In most branches the technical one is missing.
From the branch
Advice nobody overhears
What changes at the advisory desk
The person waiting hears that people are talking
And no longer what about. The sound bed sits in exactly the band your hearing uses to assemble words. Numbers, names and amounts lose their outline first.
The adviser does not have to drop their voice
Whispering reads as uncertainty, and the customer leans in. With a base sound in the room you can speak normally, and the conversation feels relaxed rather than conspiratorial.
A technical measure you can point to
For internal audit and for the data protection officer, an installed system is a different thing from a house rule. It can be described, documented and listed in the record of processing activities.
Without touching the branch design
The device stands on the advisory desk or the sideboard behind it. There is no ceiling mount, no visible speaker and nothing that fights the branch identity.
From the branch
Conversations sit closest together where the waiting area and the advisory zone share a room. That is where the first device goes, usually on the furniture between the two. In larger branches a second one joins it at the service counter.
We measure the branch acoustically rather than calculate from a floor plan. Reverberation, ceiling height and how many people actually wait at once change the answer more than the square metres do.
Common questions
- Does this replace a partition or a closed advisory room?
- No. If a conversation genuinely belongs behind a door, it belongs behind a door. Masking covers the space in between: the open advisory desk, the service counter, the waiting area. Exactly the situations nobody is going to build a booth for.
- Do customers notice that something is running?
- Usually not consciously. The sound has no locatable source and no rhythm; it reads like quiet ventilation. Someone listening for it will hear it. Someone holding a conversation will not.
- How long does installation in a branch take?
- Putting it down and switching it on takes minutes; tuning it to the room takes under an hour. There is no electrician and no closure. We normally do it before opening or after hours.
Let us talk about your room.
Tell us where it is too open. You get an honest read on whether masking solves your problem, and if it does not, we will say so.
Talk to us