ATMIA preps for security show

ATMIA preps for security show
Tags: ATM Industry Association (ATMIA), Associations / Conferences, Bank / Credit Union, North America, Other, Retail / Off-Premises, Security, Triton
September 26, 2007 - Tracy Kitten

Security is a hot topic in the ATM world, and two industry conferences on two different continents have dedicated their line-ups to covering it.

The ATM Industry Association, which in September wrapped its North American security show in Las Vegas, is gearing for up its European equivalent, ATM Sec 7. Now in its seventh year, the ATM Sec conference series discusses security from a global perspective, but much of its focus is on the European market.

The conference runs Oct. 8-9 in London. Click here to learn more about the conference.

"ATM Sec 7 will include numerous case studies with speakers from leading (European) banks, such as HSBC, Swedbank and Ceska sporitelna, and independent ATM deployers, such as Australia's Customers," said Amanda Hardy, European marketing director for ATMIA Conferences LLC. "Visa and MasterCard will focus on ATM fraud from a card perspective, while the police will provide an update on the important relationship between deployers, vendors and the law enforcement community."

Similar to the keynote presentation about terrorist threats and their links to financial services delivered by the Federal Bureau of Investigation during the North American conference, ATM Sec 7 will host its own presentation about terrorism and its impact on the ATM industry in Europe.

Tim White, detective chief superintendent for the Metropolitan Police Service in the United Kingdom, will review Europe's current level of threat and what financial-services businesses can do to reduce their risk.

"Our prime objectives are to ensure that there is industry awareness of the migration of crime, and to reiterate the best-practice methods to reduce crime by way of 'Protect Your PIN' campaigns and the coordination of working groups to bring law enforcement, card issuers, ATM deployers, switch/transaction processors and industry specialists together in the overall fight against criminal activity," said Graham McKay, executive director of ATMIA Europe.

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During his Tuesday afternoon session, "Overview of the key trends in ATM security," which will wrap the conference, McKay expects to summarize the role ATMIA is playing in ATM-security assurance.

"I will be focusing on the crime displacement factor, which is particularly evident with card-skimming fraud," McKay said. "As Western Europe has extensively introduced chip and PIN, we have seen crime move dramatically to the USA, Eastern Europe and the Far East, all of which are primarily using magnetic-stripe technology at ATMs."

Market differences do play a role in the suppression of ATM-related crime, but as the world becomes a smaller place, deployers from either side of the pond can share and learn from each other, says Doug Sholes, senior director of product management and marketing for United States-based Triton Systems.

Europe's move to the Europay, MasterCard, Visa standard, for instance, is expected to have an impact on U.S. deployers, especially as Canada nears its EMV-migration completion. From a regulatory perspective, Sholes says the United States is lagging.

"We have to spend a lot of time meeting standards in the U.S., but it's not as restrictive as it is in Europe, South Africa and Australia," Sholes said. "During my presentation, I will go through a litany of what we've had to do to be Triple DES compliant, and then I will touch on Visa PIN encryption and the new one, the PCI (Data) Security Standard, as well as the VISA PED standard, which is coming in January. In the U.S., we will be compliant with that as well."

A number of compliance deadlines are looming over Europe, Sholes said, including the March 31, 2008, deadline for remote-key transport on all new ATMs, and the March 31, 2009, RKT deadline for all existing ATMs.

One commonality among the North American and European markets, Sholes said, is the perception that retail or "off-premises" ATMs are in some way less secure than "bank" ATMs. Sholes says he expects to devote a significant amount of his Monday afternoon presentation, "ATM security issues in a retail environment," which he is co-hosting with Ron Delnevo of U.K.-based IAD Bank Machine Ltd., to dispelling that myth.

"I'm going to compare our FT7000 (an ATM geared toward financial institutions) with a retail ATM and ask which one you feel more comfortable using," Sholes said. "From there, I plan to highlight how retail and banking ATMs are held to the same certification standards for UL (vaults/safes), as well as for WEEE (the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment directive) and RoHS (the directive for the restriction of the use of certain hazardous substances in electrical and electronic equipment). Then I will talk about the ratings of the vaults, from a UL rating perspective, while the whole time comparing and contrasting the retail ATM to the bank ATM."

Sholes said he hopes to illustrate that the industry needs to work to educate consumers about the equal levels of safety as well.

A new ATM twist

Although the focus of the conference hasn't wavered since its inception seven years ago, this year's conference is a bit different, in that it's being co-hosted for the first time with England's Retail Banking Research Ltd.

RBR, which has been involved with ATMIA's conferences for a number of years - in addition to regularly providing the association with in-depth research - is expected to give the conference a somewhat different feel, says Mike Lee, chief executive of ATMIA and founder of the ATM Sec series.

But, Lee is quick to point out that the conference "remains an ATMIA event."