After NCR's decision to take a $42 million charge in the first quarter of 2001 for loans and receivables related to its business with Credit Card Center, the troubled Philadelphia ISO that recently filed for bankruptcy, it wouldn't have been a surprise to see the manufacturer back away from the independent ATM industry.

 Instead, NCR closed a deal with Financial Technologies (FTI), making the Jackson, Miss.-based ISO its newest Master VAR (value-added reseller).

 "We're committed to the retail space and to developing strategic relationships with partners. Not all of the competition approaches the market this way," said Jim Sampier, NCR's national alliance sales director, apparently referring to Diebold's franchise program. Under that program, the NCR rival installs and manages ATMs for retail locations; Diebold owns the machines and shares some transaction revenues with merchants.

 FTI, established in 1995, has the attributes NCR is seeking in independent partners, Sampier said. "They have a great reputation and longevity in the business. They stand out as a quality sales organization."

 As a Master VAR, FTI will sell NCR machines directly to end users and also to smaller ISOs. About half of NCR's dozen distributors have a similar sales structure, Sampier said.

 FTI will handle both NCR's entry-level EasyPoint 55 and the higher-end Personas line of machines. FTI, which has relationships with several petroleum trade associations and the O'Charley's restaurant chain, will also continue to sell Cross, Tidel and Triton equipment.

 FTI President Tommy Glenn said the NCR Personas should help his company get the attention of financial institutions, a market it has been pursuing for about two years.

FTI recently hired a director of financial institution sales to beef up its efforts at getting bank business. The company is targeting small to mid-size banks, and thus won't compete with NCR's own direct sales force. "They focus pretty much on the largest financial institutions in the nation," Glenn said.

Glenn said the NCR brand name is also an asset when selling to large retail chains, many of which have a history of purchasing other kinds of NCR equipment such as cash registers and point-of-sale terminals. "With the larger deployments, they like to have a name like NCR behind it," he said.

Another avenue for new business, Glenn said, is providing existing NCR customers with parts and service.

Sampier agreed that access to sales and service support is one of the biggest advantages of a distributor's relationship with NCR. Each distributor is assigned an alliance account manager and receives training for both its sales reps and service techs. A distributor can also opt to utilize NCR's own technicians.

Another key advantage, Sampier said, is NCR's recently-established relationship with GE Capital, which will provide lease financing for NCR machines through its Vendor Financial Services division. The seven-year agreement was announced in April.

"The last thing one of our partners wants to do is become a collection agency for a leasing company," Sampier said. "We want to show ISOs that we're an attractive partner. We want our channel partners to make money."