SYDNEY, Australia - St.George Bank and subsidiary BankSA have deployed audio lead through for visually impaired ATM users. The banks are using Phoenix Interactive Design Inc.'s VISTAatm Text-to-Speech module.
According to a news release, St.George awarded Phoenix an exclusive contract several years ago to provide VISTAatm as the driving software solution for its multivendor network of NCR and Diebold ATMs. Rollout of the software was completed at both St.George Bank and BankSA in 2006.
The initiative, which focused on moving from OS/2 to Windows, has been supplemented with the addition of audio capability to address Australian Disability Act requirements. The VISTAatm Text-to-Speech module uses an advanced-technology computer-generated synthetic voice - a text-to-speech engine - rather than WAV files. With Text-to-Speech, audio is easily changed or added and does not involve the expense and time to market involved with human audio recordings (WAV files), Phoenix says.
"VISTAatm is designed to be flexible and ensure far better time and cost efficiencies than have ever been seen before in our industry," said Brad Evans, Phoenix's general manager for Asia-Pacific."
