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NCR stresses team approach
As the industry moves forward into the Web-enabled future, NCR wants to assemble a crack team of partners for its ATM Team. Better teamwork also will help the industry implement voice guidance, Triple DES encryption and remote key management at ATMs, NCR told those who attended its fourth annual Self Service Summit.
August 21, 2002
DAYTON, Ohio -- Andy Orent, NCR's vice president of sales and service, kicked off last week's Self Service Summit here, attended by about 50 representatives from EFT networks, switches, software developers and other NCR partners, by acknowledging that past events had been less than a roaring success.
"We were pretty barren as far as cooperation with our partners was concerned," Orent said. "We weren't working effectively together."
At its first Self-Service Summit in 1999, Orent said, NCR offered no shared business development with its partners, one or two annual legacy software releases and no multi-vendor software.
But NCR expects to be more reliant on its partners as the ATM industry moves forward into the Web-enabled future, Orent said. After showing graphics of ATM screens created using HTML and boasting advanced transactions such as money transfer and check cashing, Orent said, "We're in the very early stages of a drastic change, and it's coming fast and furiously."
Several new NCR technologies, including its check imaging module, bunch note acceptor and the kiosk-like Personas 78 ATM deployed by 7-Eleven in its Vcom project, will require more partner support if they are ever to be implemented on a broader scale, Orent said.
Better teamwork also will be required as the industry grapples with implementing voice guidance, Triple DES encryption and remote key management at ATMs, he added.
NCR's strategies include linking field sales with its partners, providing more referrals and more joint business development, all piggybacked on its multi-vendor APTRA software.
"You can't serve your customers and we can't serve your customers unless we communicate and cooperate in bringing new products and services to market," Orent said.
Here are some other items that caught this editor's ear and eye in Dayton:
Da-dum, da-dum: On the third floor near the elevator hangs a shark caught by VP of marketing Bob Tramontano. Keith Taylor, senior VP of the Financial Solutions division, said it's there not to showcase Tramontano's fishing skills but to show that "NCR is hungry for business." Several small fish, each bearing the name of a competitor, hang near the shark -- with one strategically positioned in its mouth.
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Just when you thought it was safe to deploy, the NCR shark. |
Survey said: Tramontano presented the results of a survey of 86 top ATM deployers conducted last spring by research firm Frost and Sullivan for NCR regarding the deployers' plans for new ATM services between now and 2004. A whopping 75 percent plan to migrate to a Windows-based platform by 2004. Fifty percent plan to offer advertising, with 12 percent expressing interest in third-party advertising. Forty-four percent plan to connect their ATMs to CRM (customer relationship management) systems for targeted communications. Twenty one percent plan to offer ticketing, while 24 percent are "very interested."
The big Kahuna: Of the deployers questioned by Frost and Sullivan, 20 percent are beginning to install deposit automation systems, which have been a focus for NCR for the past few years. Another 20 percent have plans to start, while 40 percent are "actively considering" and 20 percent are "interested." Tramontano said, "This is the single biggest transaction that can be automated today that will yield immediate tangible results. No one said they weren't going to do something about it."
Global growth: Taylor said NCR expects to do more business in China in this year's third quarter than in all of 2001. China's entry into the WTO, its preparations for the 2008 Olympics and the growing affluence of its people are several of the factors that put it on a huge growth curve, he said.
Lobbying for truncation: NCR gave an update of the status of the Check Truncation Act, which would permit banks to substitute digital images for actual checks, dramatically reducing processing costs. Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan submitted the Act to chairs and ranking members of the Senate and House banking committees last December. NCR in May hosted Rep. Mike Oxley (R-Ohio), chair of the House Financial Services Committee, to ask him to sponsor the Act. Others NCR has met with include Federal Reserve Governor Mark Olsen; Rep. Spencer Bachus, chairman of the Subcommittee on Financial Institutions and Consumer Credit; and staffers from the offices of Sen. Bob Bennett (R-Utah) and Sen. Paul Sarbanes (D-Md.). NCR has invited IBM and Unisys to join the initiative and also hopes to recruit the Chamber of Commerce and National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB).
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The Personas 90, one of the more colorful ATMs on display in NCR's Anderson Center. |
Handling "new" deposits: Phil Kasper, assistant vice president of the ATM Self-Service Division for the Americas, said that NCR's Personas 86 walk-up and drive-through models, as well as Personas 90 drive-ups may be upgraded to accept envelope-free cash and check deposits. To upgrade, the traditional envelope depository is replaced with a check imaging module and a bunch note acceptor. Upgrade modules will be available next March for the P86 and next April for the P90. The P72 and P78 already support envelope-free deposits.
Oh, a wisenheimer: When Steve Kremer, NCR's director of the ATM Center of Expertise, challenged the audience to name a function that couldn't be performed by the Personas 78, the advanced-function kiosk used in 7-Eleven's Vcom deployments, ACI Worldwide project manager Rick DuVall shot back, "Envelope deposits."
No candy bars here: Bill Allen, director of the Deposit Automation Center for Expertise, said that NCR's bunch note acceptor has little in common with the glitch-ridden cash acceptors that are found on some vending machines. The bunch note acceptor processes five notes per second and uses seven tests for authenticity. Thousands of them have been successfully deployed in Asia, Allen said. "We can absolutely guarantee that we don't get a fraudulent note, but we may eliminate some good notes. We're working on finding a balance."
Market segmentation: Kasper offered NCR's estimate of how the ATM market breaks out. The country's top 100 financial institutions own 102,690 ATMs, with 56,450 of them full-function (read deposit taking) units and 46,240 cash dispensers. Mid-tier community banks, including credit unions, own 83,900 ATMs, with 50,340 full-function and 33,560 cash dispensers. Non-banks account for 136,000 ATMs, with 6,000 cash dispensers owned by retailers such as the Publix supermarket chain and the remaining 130,000 cash dispensers owned or managed by ISOs.
Ahead with APTRA: By 2004, NCR hopes to migrate all deployers to its APTRA software. NCR hopes to move top FIs to APTRA in the next 12 months, with deposit automation the business driver for branches and advanced functionality the driver at retail sites. Mid-tier FIs will likely run OS/2 NDC+ in the next year, migrating to APTRA in 2004, as APTRA becomes "a shrink-wrapped, off-the-shelf offering," Kasper said. For non-banks, NCR hopes to migrate some with high-end machines to APTRA through its Convenience Connexions program; the rest will continue to use @tmEASE, NCR's Triton emulation software, on EasyPoint machines. In 2004, NCR plans to provide APTRA on both the Personas and EasyPoint lines.
Revising history: When Kasper presented NCR's "History of the World" of U.S. ATMs, he was taken to school by some of the partners in attendance. After he shared NCR's opinion that there were no early NCR 1700 series or Diebold 900 series ATMs in the field, a partner piped up, "I've got 50 of them in Nebraska," and several others chimed in with similar counts.
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The Personas 78, the much-talked-about machine deployed by 7-Eleven in its Vcom project. |
Breaking down the break-even: In a review of Convenience Connexions, Kasper said that the price of a single Personas 78 like those used in 7-Eleven's Vcom deployments has come down from about $100,000 in 1997 to roughly $40,000 today. Kasper estimated that the units would pay for themselves within 30 to 32 months of deployment provided they generate 1,500 surcharged ATM transactions, 750 check-cashing transactions, 500 money order purchases and 100 wire transfers a month.
Props to partners: Kasper emphasized the importance of the partnership strategy utilized by 7-Eleven and advocated in the Convenience Connexions program (See related story Making the Connexion) by referring to InnoVentry, which deployed some 1,000 check-cashing kiosks in retail locations before going bankrupt in September 2001. "InnoVentry tried to do everything itself," he said. "When you try to do it all, there's no room for failure."
That's a RAAP: The Remote Access Application Protocol (RAAP) software that NCR purchased from TRM Corporation last February is currently driving ticketing and prepaid phone applications in a pilot in St. Louis. On display in NCR's Anderson Solution Center was an EasyPoint 55 ATM with a sign reading "Cash and Shop," the brand NCR is considering rolling out for future RAAP deployments.
Six-step program: Stephen Risto, director of the APTRA Solution Center of Expertise, told the crowd that NCR believes that six "building blocks" will lay the foundation for the ATM's future. In no particular order, they are: Windows operating systems; browser-based applications driven by servers rather than hosts; TCP/IP networking; multi-vendor, XFS-based software; separation of authorization processing from application logic; and the re-use of enterprise infrastructure.
Soft sell: Risto said that just the presence of advanced transactions on an ATM menu might be enough to lure new customers. If a non-customer visits the ATM of another bank to withdraw cash and notices that he could deposit checks there without an envelope, for example, he might consider moving his account.
Which Windows?: NCR is considering both Windows XP and Windows CE for future incarnations of its EasyPoint ATMs. "We haven't drawn a line in the sand yet," said an NCR rep during the Anderson Center tour. But NCR is leaning toward XP, he said. Voice guidance should be available on the EasyPoints in 60 to 90 days, with EPP (Encrypted PIN pads) to support Triple DES ready by the fourth quarter.
Eat your veggies and don't forget your gloves: In one of the more entertaining Anderson Center demos, an animated grandmother appeared on the transaction screen of a Personas 70. Like many real grannies, she was quick to offer her opinion when the user selected a cash withdrawal amount. "Are you sure that's enough? It's Uncle Bob's birthday," she said for $40. "That's a little extravagant," she opined at $100.
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