NCR: 600-plus intelligent ATMs placed with small FIs

Some of the banks and credit unions have rolled out the machines while others are actively piloting the ATMs, Bob Tramontano, NCR vice president of marketing for the financial industry, tells ATMmarketplace.com. Tramontano did not provide a breakdown between placements and pilots.

More than 9,000 banks and credit unions could benefit from envelope-free ATMs because they increase deposits and they reduce by up to 75 percent financial institutions' yearly operating expenses, he says.

NCR and its competitors have complained during quarterly earnings conference calls that regional and small banks and credit unions were reluctant to buy envelope-free ATMs.

The Duluth, Ga.-based manufacturer always has focused on small banks and credit unions, but the company's motivation to pursue small financial institutions gained traction after Bank of America Corp. and JPMorgan Chase & Co., two of the nation's largest bank owners of ATMs, completed their rollouts of envelope-free ATMs.

Bank of America, which is based in Charlotte, N.C., finished in December, and Chase, which is based in New York, did so in April.

"We learned a lot of from the placement of ATMs with large customers. We also were able to assign employees who worked on the large accounts to smaller institution [accounts]," Tramontano said. In addition, First Data Corp., Co-op Financial Services and other networks certified NCR's SelfServ ATMs, making them more appealing to small banks and credit unions, he added.