News

Want a more efficient ATM fleet? Try following 'protocol'

July 12, 2004

Despite the Web-enabled possibilities of new-generation ATMs, most machines communicate like it's 1975. A majority still use 30-year-old networking protocols such as SNA (Systems Network Architecture), originally developed by IBM for its mainframe computers back when Nixon was in the White House and Paul McCartney had Wings.

But as ATMs become more like personal computers and new software offers the ability to create content based on HTML and other Web languages, more deployers are configuring the machines to communicate via Internet Protocol, the de facto networking standard for PCs.

Jim D'Aprile, FleetBoston Financial's vice-president of ATM/Self-Service Banking, said that IP helps makes ATMs an integrated part of a bank's retail delivery platform rather than a stand-alone channel.

"There's no point in adding new functions if your ATMs are totally isolated from your other channels," said D'Aprile, whose company has converted hundreds of its 3,600 ATMs to IP.

Kevin Carroll, director of ATM Products for Concord EFS, said that IP facilitates new ATM functionality such as check-imaging.

"With Check 21, you've got people taking baby steps toward shipping digital check images from the ATM to the back-office imaging system-which is on IP. In the enterprise world, IP is the way to communicate," he said.

It will also virtually eliminate the need for "sneakernet," the practice of visiting ATMs to install new software. This will become important as more ATMs move to a Windows-based platform, Carroll said. "Just think if you had to visit all of your ATMs every time a Windows security patch came out."

Ted Josephson, vice-president of eBusiness and Operations.for People's Bank, said People's improved transaction capacity at its 212 branch ATMs by converting them from leased-line to IP. People's once experienced problems with strings of ATMs going down if one went off-line; that hasn't occurred since the switch to IP.

While he characterized People's as a "fast follower" when it comes to introducing new functionality, using IP "positions us well for the future," Josephson said.

"My telecom costs are already depreciating, so I won't have to take a big hit for telecom as we create a migration path to Windows-based ATMs."

Primary conversion costs, Josephson said, include adding Ethernet cards to ATMs and routers to each site. Some older ATMs also may require core upgrades, with a faster processor and more memory.