In a
new report, "Open Systems at ATMs: Beyond The One-Armed
Bandit," Celent examines the trend among US banks to convert
their ATMs to open systems.
Having retreated from aggressive off-premise
deployments, banks are struggling to generate new revenues and to
differentiate themselves on customer service. In this context, there are
hopes that open technologies will facilitate the development of new
services.
In this report, Celent looks at how quickly banks
will adopt open systems, defined as technologies that utilize hardware,
software, languages, and protocols which are acknowledged by the industry
as being sufficiently well-known and accessible; which vendors will
benefit from the trend; and whether banks will seek to leverage open
system technologies by providing advanced functionalities.
Based on more than 30 interviews with banks,
processors, and technology vendors, the report shows that US banks will
rapidly convert to Windows and multi-vendor software in the next 2-3
years. Meanwhile, the move to open systems will have little to do with
advanced functionalities, but with basic maintenance needs and economics,
and vendors’ pressures. 64% of the banks adopting Windows have no plans
to turn on advanced functionalities in the next 18 months.
On the vendors’ side, Celent expects NCR and
Diebold to capture more than 80% of multi-vendor software sales, with less
than 20% going to other vendors such as Wincor-Nixdorf, Fujitsu, and
Phoenix Interactive.
Overall, banks’ conservative approach to advanced
functionalities will mean the present distribution of revenues between
software and hardware will continue to favor hardware at ATM vendors. "The
move to open systems is unlikely to trigger massive demand for new
software. In coming years, ATM vendors hoping to resist the
commoditization and maturation of the US market by growing software
revenues are likely to see those hopes dashed," comments
