News

Operational improvements key to ATM software

ATM owners favor operational efficiencies over bells and whistles, says software developer TEKchand LLC. The company recently licensed its switch-based software to CU Connect and eFunds.

February 15, 2004

Financial institutions want to sell their customers a certificate of deposit or a mortgage, not a phone card or a movie ticket.

That's what led TEKchand LLC to focus on the delivery of targeted content to ATM screens and receipts with its ATMRewards software.

"When we introduced our product a few years ago, like a lot of other developers we were focusing on e-commerce," said Rajeev Bahri, the Chicago-based company's managing director. "When we showed it to financial institutions, the technical people would say it looked great, take it back to their shops and come back a few weeks later and say they weren't interested. They didn't want movie tickets or e-shopping."

So TEKchand decided to emphasize the software's core capabilities, particularly the ability to work on most legacy ATMs -- regardless of make or model -- with no hardware or software changes at the machine.

The big switch

The product is designed to integrate with the ATM driving systems and software, such as ACI Worldwide'sBase24 and eFunds' Connex, so it does not directly communicate with the ATM. "No field visits are required to set it up," Bahri said.

It can be used with any states-and-screens-based machine, with the exception of the earliest generations, Bahri said. The Web-based software translates its own XML-based protocols to NCR's NDC or Diebold's 911/912.

TEKchand's revised strategy seems to be paying off. Last year, the company signed its first two clients.

CU Connect, a transaction processor that serves Canadian credit unions, now has about two dozen ATMs running the ATMRewards software, with plans of adding more this quarter. The CU Connect system runs Base24 on a Tandem server.

Rob Myhre, vice president of product management for eFunds'EFT Processing division, said eFunds plans a beta test of the software in 2004's second quarter. The eFunds system runs Connex on a Tandem server.

Myhre said ATMRewards ties together three key functions: remotely changing ATM screens and receipts, downloading graphics and compiling and managing customer data. A TCP/IP connection is necessary for graphics downloads, though not for the other two functions.

Initially, eFunds plans to target financial institutions, although the company believes that ISOs may be interested in some of the software's features -- particularly the ability to remotely  change ATM screens and graphics, which helps keep in-store promotions "fresh."

In control

Bahri said that ATM managers will gain the ability to gather data "on the fly" by asking customers to use one of the machine's unused function keys to complete polls -- for instance, registering their interest in particular product offers. In the same way, ATM users can register their preferences for language, most common withdrawal amount and other transaction features.

The software's Web-based interface will allow processors to offer their clients direct access to particular screens and even to subsets of ATMs, Bahri said. "A financial institution might want to allow a certain branch manager to change the 'please wait' screens on a group of 25 or 30 ATMs, for example."

These abilities will allow ATM owners to direct their efforts to marketing rather than to overcoming operational quirks, he said. "Instead of thinking about load files, they can think about creating a particular poll or coupon."

By offloading the creation of screens and coupons to their clients, processors can direct their efforts to improving their core operations, Bahri added.

Myhre believes many eFunds clients will appreciate the ability to directly control some ATM content. "They want to feel more in control of certain elements of their distribution strategy," he said.

Neutral party

The software's vendor neutrality will allow eFunds to introduce it to clients more quickly and at less cost than the vendor-specific software provided by major ATM manufacturers, Myhre said.

"The training and technology costs with the different solutions can really add up. It's more work and cost for us to make the vendors' solutions look brand agnostic to the data center and to the customer," he said.

Vendors' products also generally do not support ATMs running an OS/2 operating system -- which remain the majority of today's installed base.

"The vendors are directing their efforts to the Windows-based platform, which is certainly the direction the market is moving. But the reality is that, like it or not, there will continue to be OS/2 machines in the field for a while to come," Myhre said.

Despite its licensing of ATMRewards, eFunds continues to work with other hardware and software vendors, Myhre said.