South Shore Bank entered a new market and a new era in banking this week when it opened its new, high-tech financial center in Hingham.

The 99 South St. branch is the bank’s 14th branch and its first in Hingham. It’s also something of a test lab, President and CEO John Boucher said.

For starters, South Shore Bank got rid of the teller line in this branch. Customers who come in for basic transactions will have the choice of working with a cross-trained staff member who will use a cash recycling machine at the "teller pod" or using a Personal Teller Machine (PTM). The PTM looks like an ATM, but when you touch the screen, a teller working in the bank’s South Weymouth headquarters greets you on a video screen. Those live video tellers will be available 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Friday and 7 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturdays.

The bank installed an 80-inch touch-screen television in the middle of the lobby, and the plan is to use that piece of equipment to offer training and seminars on topics like home buying or small business banking, Boucher said.

The new branch has been in the works for about six months now, he said. South Shore Bank has six branches in neighboring Weymouth and had already begun to attract customers from Hingham. The bank also owns the Cambridge Mortgage Group, which needed more room, and expanding into Hingham offered South Shore the opportunity to dip its toes into a new technological space.

"We’ve been watching the numbers over the years, and the number of transactions we do in branches now has been dropping year after year," Boucher said.

But customers still sometimes need to see a banker in person – when they have a question or a problem, for instance, or when they want to apply for a loan, he said.

Boucher is also hoping to get ahead of the curve (and the big banks) with this new branch and envisions that South Shore will eventually roll this technology out to all of its branches.

"We’re hoping it’s going to be the branch of the future."