Article

Wincor Nixdorf defends reliability of single-slot machines

NCR's success in deploying single-slot ATMs encourages Wincor Nixdorf to talk about its installations.

January 29, 2011

PADERBORN, Germany — Last year, Wincor Nixdorf Inc. shipped 7,000 ATMs throughout the United States, and 75 percent of those shipments were single-slot machines, said Jens Bohlen, CEO of the Austin, Texas-based company.

Wincor Nixdorf calls its single-slot ATM Check Cash Deposit Module because the machine enables cardholders to deposit cash and checks though one slot but not simultaneously.

Wincor Nixdorf AG first introduced the single-slot machine in 2003 to a very skeptical industry. It was an alternative to the dual-slot ATM, which has one slot to accept check deposits and another to accept cash deposits.

Some industry experts believed and many still do that if the slot on the single-slot machine jammed, the ATM would stop operating. Banks would lose deposits, and cardholders could not withdraw cash.

Gil Luria, senior vice president of equity research and financial technology at Wedbush Securities in Los Angeles, is one of many who expressed concerns about the single-slot machine.

“The more functionality you put into each module the higher the risk the entire piece of equipment is to fail,” Luria said. “If your deposit module jams on this machine you cannot dispense at all.”

But a top Wincor Nixdorf Inc. executive claimed those concerns are not realistic.

“The reality is that our Check Cash Deposit Module is very reliable. We have rolled out the fifth generation of the single-slot ATM,” said Alan Walsh, executive vice president of U.S. Banking for Wincor Nixdorf Inc.

Wincor Nixdorf AG, the Paderborn, Germany-based parent company of Wincor Nixdorf Inc., began manufacturing single-slot ATMs to reduce cardholder confusion.

“There is a slot for cards, a slot for receipts, [and on a dual-slot ATM] there is slot for checks and a slot for cash,” Walsh said. “The number of slots confused cardholders and they preferred depositing checks and cash into one slot."