Some companies in the ATM manufacturing business today prefer to focus on design and marketing rather than on engineering, said Danny Langston, national sales director of GTI (formerly Greenlink Technologies).
With those companies in mind, GTI quietly sells module sets that include a dispenser, card reader, printer, display screen, keyboard, processor, modem and software – in essence, a complete "build-it-yourself" ATM kit. While the software is written by GTI, the other peripherals come from vendors like De La Rue, which makes dispensers.
"It's the same software and modules that we use in our ATMs," Langston said. "They can bolt (the module set) into their cabinetry, and give it the touch, smell and feel they want it to have."
Perhaps most importantly, all of the components have already been certified by the major processors. So, in most instances, no re-certification is required after a machine is built using the kit.
"Putting the hardware together isn't too difficult. It's writing the applications and getting them certified with the networks that's the catch," Langston said. "We take care of all of that."
The price of a module kit is about 25 percent less than the wholesale cost of one of GTI's ATMs, said Langston, a 35-year NCR veteran who joined GTI a year ago. He estimated that the module sets account for about 25 percent of overall sales for GTI, which shipped 947 of its own machines in the U.S. last year.
Langston did not name any clients that have purchased module sets, noting that most of them have non-disclosure agreements with GTI. But companies have used the kits to configure some fairly unusual machines, he said, mentioning one client that recently designed a small through-the-wall cash dispenser.
Lately GTI has been fielding plenty of inquiries from companies in the kiosk business that are interested in adding ATM functionality to their products, Langston said. "You can attach a complete module set to somebody's kiosk application without disturbing it, so you can plug their keyboard and screen interface into our module set and vice versa."
