Bank Customer Experience Podcast

Is it time to update your ATM host?

KAL CEO Aravinda Korala joins host Bradley Cooper to explain the strategic importance of ATM host systems, the limitations of outdated infrastructure, the move towards "zero legacy" environments and why modernization doesn’t need to be a “big bang” project for banks.

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October 9, 2026

Financial institutions often rely on heavily outdated systems, especially when it comes to ATM hosts. By relying on legacy hosts, they may be unable to perform upgrades and failures can become more frequent and expensive.

In this episode of the Bank Customer Experience podcast, KAL CEO Aravinda Korala joins host Bradley Cooper to explain the strategic importance of ATM host systems, the limitations of outdated infrastructure, the move toward "zero legacy" environments and why modernization doesn't need to be a "big bang" project for banks.

He noted that many banks are frightened of replacing ATM hosts, especially if they have "thousands of ATMs, connected to this one big single point of failure."

However, by relying on legacy systems, banks will find that software support is either "questionable, or maybe even potentially hardly even available."

One of the main reasons these systems are kept around is that they can perform common transaction processing fairly quickly. "The real problem is that it can't do anything new."

One way KAL approaches host projects is to keep it one small step at a time.

"It is possible to support one ATM, then two, then five, then ten, and switch the existing ATMs from the old host to the new host one at a time. But not only can we do that migration in a carefully organized, step-by-step way. It is also true with our software. We can do the same thing as we do with new versions of our software. In other words, it's never a big bang with our KTH product," Korala said.

When asked what KTH involved, he pointed to its ability to run ATM networks and POS networks. For ATMs, its most important service is being able "to talk to multiple different services that might be within the bank."

With this technique, banks can offer customers additional services at the ATM such as a better credit card or banking product.

"The job of KTH is to connect to those services and put it all together into a real transaction."

Listen to the podcast in its entirety above.