Article

Software can improve ATM uptime and enterprise management

Transactional analytics can give FIs a 360 view of their ATMs in real-time.

March 10, 2009 by Jay Goodwin — VP Sales and Marketing, ESQ Business Services

It is no secret that ATM/POS networks are extremely complicated and complex systems driven by a million moving parts and administered by highly specialized technicians. When everything works according to plan, banks are able to meet the consumer expectation of having access to bank services anytime almost anywhere. On the other hand, when any one or more of those million moving parts fails, the ATM fails, and the consumer's expectations are far from met. Thus, a bank's ATM network is only as good as its last transaction.

Jay Goodwin

High ATM availability is the goal for any bank, and business-service-management software, transaction analyzers in particular, are designed to ensure high availability across the line of business. To ensure that high availability requires the gathering of technical and performance data from multiple touchpoints and presenting it in near real time to the business — in understandable language and graphics.

Essentially, BSM software is a bridge that joins the efforts of the IT group with the demands of the business. Data is transformed into information that can be used as actionable intelligence, allowing managers to catch small problems before they become large problems and to react to trends as they develop.

In addition to IT and business-performance information being presented in real time, the information also is configured for the user's specific preferences and objectives. Each area of responsibility within the line of business can now configure its own personal dashboards to display only the information relevant to its role and responsibility. Instead of receiving a 400-page report at the end of the month, performance is now visualized and acted upon in near real time on a daily, even hourly, basis.

A look inside the ATM system

Users of BSM technology say one of the primary payoffs is being able to see inside their systems, with a view previously not available. They are able to see trends as they develop and react to them accordingly, and then save the information for future use. This helps them react to seasonal or event-driven situations, and allows them to conduct capacity planning far more accurately.

Having access to the LOB's key performance indicators in real time provides IT and bank managers with the ability to monitor, understand and adjust their business models more precisely with more predictable results. A manager can create a set of rules around those KPI's so that the system sends a notice when a particular metric is out of range, for instance.

And because BSM systems also gather and consolidate information from other systems, the LOB can understand how the performance of one system affects the performance of another system, and ultimately the performance of the entire business. An example might be gaining an understanding of how a communication link overload affects transaction flow back to the acquiring bank. Seeing how a 5-percent reduction in transactions per second over a single day can lead to losses of tens of thousands of dollars for the bank is eye-opening for many financial institutions.

In summary, BSM tools provide ATM/POS business managers with a window to information that helps them understand and manage business more efficiently through higher ATM availability. These tools also have a very short return on investment, because root-problem analysis is enhanced and improved through the use of real-time analytics.

While the concept of using BSM tools is relatively new to the ATM/POS space, it is quickly gaining popularity among large and mid-tier banks and processors.

Jay Goodwin is a major-account representative for ESQ, a global provider of IT performance managment. To submit a comment about this commentary, please email theeditor.

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