A survey of ATM professionals has reported that a majority of them say integrating mobiles phones and ATMs top the list of their industry priorities.
The survey, conducted by Level Four Software, a firm based in the United Kingdom that specializes in ATM software, reported ATM professionals are considering how ATMs and mobile phones could be made into more complementary partners than competitors.
The company pointed to mobile phone/ATM combinations in Kenya, South Africa and Spain as examples of what could be done and said that work has already begun.
“Clearly the reliability of such systems needs to be checked thoroughly and ATMs would undergo a thorough round of tests before such technology was rolled out,” the company wrote in its report. “Because of ever-changing timescales of projects, forward thinking banks are now moving to automated testing as it allows systems to be tested as they are developed, rather than having to wait for the whole system to be in place. This means a project can run in a more fluid manner as the testing of each component isn’t critically interlinked.”
The first winner of CO-OP Financial Services' THINK Prize went to a CU staffer who proposed a plan for allowing consumers to access their funds from an ATM via their mobile phones.
