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NCR advances e-commerce effort

NCR hopes its purchase of iATMglobal will make it easier to bring iATM's software to market. NCR has already enlisted partners for an April rollout of the technology, which is designed to facilitate advanced applications at ATMs.

March 17, 2002

NCR hopes to jumpstart a stalled effort to bring e-commerce transactions to ATMs with its recent purchase of the remaining equity of iATMglobal.

San Francisco-based iATMglobal became a wholly-owned subsidiary of NCR on Feb. 14. Previously, iATMglobal had been a subsidiary of NCR distributor TRM Corporation. NCR also had made a $5 million investment in iATMglobal in August of 2000 for a 20 percent ownership stake in the company.

The two companies had close ties even before NCR's initial investment. RAAP (Remote Access Application Protocol) software was created by developers at Scottish software company Strategic Software Solutions, which iATMglobal purchased in the second quarter of 2000. The same developers also created @tmLink, a remote management and monitoring software used in NCR ATMs.

"We wanted to accelerate deployment of the iATM solution," explained Robb Straub, director of the iATMglobal Content Delivery Program for NCR's Convenience Touchpoints division. "This will allow us to provide the infrastructure and get the content to a broader marketplace faster."

"This was a way for us to take RAAP and put it in hands that had more resources, both human and financial, to get it into the marketplace," agreed TRM President Daniel Spalding.

Portland, Ore.-based TRM, which reported a net loss of $6.5 million for 2001, attributed most of its operating loss for the year to iATMglobal.

The iATMglobal business model was for e-commerce providers to pay to use the ATM delivery channel, with ATM deployers and owners sharing the resulting revenue. The primary source of revenue for iATM would be processing the e-commerce transactions.

Straub said the program will essentially work the same way now that it is under NCR ownership. NCR will serve as host and switch for all e-commerce transactions.

Two companies had announced previous agreements with iATM: online discount travel agent QIXO and prepaid wireless service provider Boston Communications Group. Both are still under contract with NCR, Straub said, and have been joined by online ticket seller movietickets.com and MCI Worldcom.

"We're actively recruiting another half-dozen content vendors," Straub said.

Straub said the first locations will roll out in April. Four deployers are under contract to offer RAAP -- a large and what Straub called "forward thinking" financial institution, two large ISOs and a mid-size ISO with about 1,000 machines under contract -- and two will be involved in the April pilot.

Straub would not say how many machines will be involved in the initial rollout. All will be NCR machines, however, since RAAP software currently only communicates with NCR's @tmEase and NDC software.

That will eventually change, Straub said. "The business model has always been to develop a multi-vendor platform, and that will remain the business model for the foreseeable future."

NCR is already shipping EasyPoint machines resident with NDC with RAAP. Straub said @tmEase with RAAP will begin shipping with EasyPoint products soon.

Commenting on TRM's future, Spalding said, "In the year ahead we look to further improve and strengthen our already profitable photocopy business, further expand our ATM deployment business and return the company to profitability."

In March of 2001, TRM had installed 659 ATMs in the U.S. and 1,081 in the UK, according to a quarterly filing with the SEC. That was an increase of 1,051 ATMs from March of 2000, with most of the new units located in the UK, according to the filing. The filing also indicated that TRM was "actively managing" its U.S. ATM base by removing unprofitable machines.

Today, Spalding said that TRM has approximately 1,400 machines in the UK and may double that number this year. "We see (the UK) as clearly our biggest growth area for 2002," he said, adding "That was another reason to make sure we weren't spending an abundance on the RAAP software."

In the UK, Spalding said TRM is using the same employees to service both its photocopy machines and its ATMs. "We see that as a key competitive advantage."

TRM is considering adopting a similar service model in the U.S., he added.