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NCR Corp. on Monday announced the release of its next-generation ATM software platform. The new platform, called NCR Activate Enterprise NextGen, is intended to remake the ATM user experience to reflect similar applications in other digital-banking channels, according to the company. The idea, NCR adds, is to create a more consistent customer experience overall.
A hardware-agnostic platform, NCR’s NextGen software makes it easier for financial institutions to roll out new customer services, such as video-teller collaboration, bill payment, account administration, balance transfers between a customer’s own accounts or to their own list of payees, and enrolling in new services or products.
Offering such digital banking services allows financial institutions to match what is available through digital and mobile channels on the ATM, NCR says.
“Demand for personalization is very high in all banking interactions, whether via self-service at an ATM, on mobile or in a branch,” says Terry Duffy, senior vice president and general manager, Digital First Software and Services, NCR. “Banks and credit unions can create competitive advantages by making their customers feel more valued and by being able to offer the right services at the right time via favorite transactions at a simple level or through CRM analysis at the more sophisticated end.”
NCR says a significant number of its current ATM software customers have committed to upgrading to Activate Enterprise, without being more specific.
By offering new digital applications to ATM users, financial institutions will be able to provide a consistent user experience across all digital channels, observers say. “NCR’s newest iteration of software appears to have the goal of modernizing the consumer experience at ATMs and ITMs and making them appear to look and feel more consistent with other channels,” Sam Ditzion, chief executive of Tremont Capital Group, a provider of investment-banking solutions to ATM and payments providers, says by email. ITMs are interactive teller machines.
One factor driving the need for financial institutions to deliver better ATM experience for users, Ditzion says, is the trend toward offering more contactless banking solutions as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic.
“Financial institutions of all sizes are in the midst of trying to figure out, both during Covid and ultimately planning for post-Covid, how to best provide and improve upon transactions that are not dependent on tellers, including cardless ATM transactions,” says Ditzion.
NCR Activate Enterprise NextGen platform is compliant with the ATM Industry Association’s next-generation industry framework. That’s a plus, Ditzion says, as financial institutions and independent deployers are interested in making sure all future ATMs and software are built in accordance with ATMIA’s framework. Following this framework for applications will help make ATMs deployers less dependent on Microsoft’s upgrade cycles, Ditzion says
