By Ray Birch
CANTON, Ohio—The dreaded phone call or in-branch visit from an irritated member—or members–because an ATM is down will soon be a thing of the past, thanks to machines that can contact the credit union in advance to warn of an impending failure.
New software that monitors ATMs for potential service issues and uses an Internet of Things (IoT) connection to alert CUs will virtually eliminate downtime, according to Diebold Nixdorf.
Octavio Marquez, Diebold Nixdorf’s managing director, banking, Americas, said customers in recent years have been asking about ways to eliminate ATM downtime due to technical and mechanical problems.
“Customers emphasize, and we know how important it is, they need their machines to be available,” said Marquez. “That is where the IoT comes in. We have built sensors into the mechanical and electronic components of our DN Series ATMS, and leveraging our service technology the machines are capable of extracting data from the device itself and sending it back to the financial institution.”
Marquez explained that the ATM’s software can assess the machine’s performance and predict when a part, or the entire machine will fail. When that occurs, the ATM sends a notice to financial institution that owns it.
“The ATM monitors all of its components in real time,” he explained. “At the end of the day that provides a great benefit to our banking customers, because in the past an ATM used to be a device that was either on or off. And when it failed, it failed. Then you had to call someone to go fix it and your customers had an ATM that was not working for a while.”
Using Analytics
Marquez said the new ATMs use data analytics and capture “massive amounts” of data sent by sensors in the ATM.
“Again, the ATM will accurately predict when a machine will fail, giving the financial institution enough notice to fix the machine, and even order parts if needed,” he said. “The machine can detect, using custom patterns and algorithms, when the device will fail. This allows for a great deal more uptime.”
Octavio Marquez
Marquez said the ATMs can also “self-heal” certain problems, fixing the issue itself and never leading to any intervention by the financial institution.
“There's mechanical components that can go bad, and then there’s electronic and technology components—software—that can also fail,” noted Marquez. “When a machine detects abnormal patterns of performance, maybe something is wrong with the firmware, the machine can reach out via its IoT connection for a firmware update and stop a problem before it happens. This is just another way a machine can recover without dispatching someone to the ATM’s location.”
Fighting Skimmers
Marquez said that ATMs can be designed to fight skimming attacks, a growing crime that CUToday.info has extensively covered.
“Our new DN Series ATMs are designed for cards to be inserted by consumers sideways,” explained Marquez. “There is no skimming device that’s capable of reading a card horizontally. The other thing that we've done is design the face of the machine to make it very difficult to install skimming devices inside the ATM.”
While predictions of the cashless society have been made for years, Marquez said the need for cash—and ATMs—will likely always be there. He predicted ATMs will also evolve to do much more than just deliver money and take deposits, and will become more of an extension of the branch.
“Financial institutions are rethinking their physical presence, and the ATM can become that anchor point for them,” contended Marquez. “We’re talking with many financial institutions that want to reduce the size of their footprint, and make their offices more service oriented, letting the ATM handle more of the routine transactions.”
Larger, More Sophisticated Screens
Marquez further predicts that will not only lead to ATMs with larger, more sophisticated screens that offer more services—including being effective marketing interfaces—the ATM will be seen more as an extension of the FI’s brand and a greater part of the delivery channel.
“We think more ATMs will market products for banks and credit unions, and in some situations will take the place of a branch,” he said.