Article
ATM compliance: Burden or business opportunity?
EMV, PCI DSS, and Windows 7 present complex questions now, competitive advantages in the longer term, experts say.
October 8, 2013 by Suzanne Cluckey — Owner, Suzanne Cluckey Communications
In this Tuesday's webinar, "Turning Compliance Burdens Into Opportunities," instant polls on EMV and Windows 7 readiness spoke volumes about the hesitancy among ATM owners about launching into the hardware and software overhauls required by the accelerating schedule of compliance deadlines in the U.S. market.
More than 40 percent of the respondents said they were still "gathering information"; about 28 percent said they had started planning; but only about one-quarter said they actually had implementation underway. On the plus side, only about 5 percent of poll-takers said they "had not considered it yet."
Deployers' reluctance is at least somewhat explained by the number of questions they still have about the nuts and bolts of upgrades. The Q & A section of the webinar played out as a "20 questions" session — literally. And those 20 questions were just the ones that presenters had time to answer in half an hour.
Ron Braco, Wincor Nixdorf director of banking services for North America, and Christian Luetkhoff, Wincor VP of professional services for North America, opened the webinar with a presentation designed to answer questions about implementation and discuss how the upgrades might actually result in a competitive advantage for ATM deployers.
Braco started by addressing some of the fundamental questions — some regarding cost and others regarding capacity — that deployers must ask themselves about their fleets:
- What is the asset value of the ATM?
- What are the costs to upgrade the terminal, including labor, upgrade kits and value of downtime?
- How old is the hardware; is an upgrade even viable?
- What physical or logical constraints are involved?
- Does the unit have sufficient memory and computing power?
- Can you add memory, or will you have to upgrade the machine?
"For example, if you're looking at Windows 7, you need to take a very close look at the computing power of your ATM," Braco said. "Depending on the current or future functionality that you might want to consider, PC upgrades may be required."
For Windows 7, the deployer will need about 2 gigabytes of memory and the same amount of processing capacity for basic functionality, Braco said. If the deployer is thinking of adding new customer experience-driven features such as touchscreen, deposit functionality, cash recycling, NFC and video, computing requirements expand further.
"For higher-end ATM functionality, increased memory and processing is definitely required," Braco said.
Concerning EMV, Leutkhoff described three levels of integration the deployer must consider:
- level one, hardware, involves changing out the card reader ane possibly also the machine fascia at considerable expense;
- level two, software, might involve memory and processor upgrades; and
- level three, back-end integration, a critical step in ensuring full compatibility and operability of systems.
"At the end of the day, the largest part is really the EMV level three certification, which is the back-end integration," Luetkhoff said. "Here, you have to certify each card type with the EMV transaction, which is a large portion of the work and the compliance burden."
| PCI DSS security objectives |
With PCI, the question is whether a machine can accommodate the more robust EPP7 pin pad and the memory and processing needed to back it up.
Leutkhoff said that deployers need to look "beyond the burden" and find the opportunities enabled by these upgrades. "If you're going through a major upgrade project and you're kind of mandated to do that anyway, think about what other things you can do. Think about what your customers want."
Leutkhoff listed possibilities linked not only to customer experience but also to fleet security, availability and cost-efficiency:
- e-mailed receipt;
- customer preferences and marketing;
- monitoring — availability, reloads, reboots;
- graphical user interface — overall look and feel of the screen and flow of the transaction for customers who are used to mobile devices;
- mobile integration — allowing customers to use their mobile devices in ATM transactions (e.g., mobile prestaging).
"Do think about these things, and do use the opportunity to upgrade which you have to do right now, to actually take it one step further. Take the opportunity, take the lead time, consider the planning because the sooner you do that, the more time you have to introduce these things."
Ultimately, Braco said, the decision of how to manage upgrades is a strategic one.
"It really needs to be thought about in terms of how you view your ATM: Is it a utility? Is it a strategic delivery channel? Is this now the time to replace your ATM or to extend the life of your existing product?" Braco said. "Consider the future applications and really start to begin moving forward work very closely with your vendor to ensure that what you have in your devices today will work for the future."
"Turning Compliance Burdens Into Opportunities" was hosted by ATM Marketplace and sponsored by Wincor Nixdorf. A playback version of the webinar — including slides and Q&A — is now available for free download at the ATM Marketplace website.
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About Suzanne Cluckey
Suzanne’s editorial career has spanned three decades and encompassed all B2B and B2C communications formats. Her award-winning work has appeared in trade and consumer media in the United States and internationally.
