News

Level Four tests new ATM services for Nationwide, joins IFX Forum

February 9, 2004

LONDON - Nationwide Building Society is extending the use of Level Four's ATM Channel Development Suite to test its "FAST Till" ATMs, which feature several new services, including a a bunch note cash deposit service which links directly to a card holder's account so cash is instantly credited and a check deposit service that provides a scanned image of checks on the ATM receipt.

In conjunction with Nationwide, Level Four developed two new products, Bunch Note Acceptor plug-in and Check Processing Module plug-in, for its testing and development software.

According to a news release, the behavior of the "FAST Till" ATMs is replicated through software modeling in Level Four's tool set. The software tests every aspect of the customer's interaction with the ATM, and every aspect of the ATM's interaction with the bank's core banking systems, for end-to-end security.

Each of the advanced services entail testing implications for Nationwide, particularly the real-time services such as the cash deposit service which links directly to cardholders' accounts.  Any potential fault scenarios will have an impact on customer service levels.

Kevin Scott-Evans, Nationwide's self service banking controller, said in the release,  "The 'FAST Till' ATMs introduce a new level of physical interaction with the customer, therefore it's imperative these services are one hundred percent secure. Level Four's approach using a virtual testing environment enables us to test different case scenarios, some of which would be next to impossible to emulate in reality."

In a separate annoucement, Level Four says it has joined the Interactive Financial eXchange (IFX) Forum. As part of the IFX Forum, Level Four will support other industry-leading vendors with the development and support of a global IFX standard. (See related story (Not) lost in translation)

Over the past twelve months, Level Four has seen an upsurge of interest in IFX from customers and partners in Europe and the United States. Martin Macmillan, the company's chief executive, said this is especially true in the U.S., where financial institutions may look to combine the implementation of IFX  with a migration of their ATM networks to a Windows operating system.

Banks migrating their ATM networks to TCP/IP, Windows and IFX, as Level Four predicts is the scenario in the U.S., will require extensive testing, Macmillan said.

According to the announcement, Level Four's  involvement in the IFX Forum enables the company to understand the evolving needs of all parties and to gain access to ATM specifications upon which they can effectively test within a virtual ATM environment.