This week’s blog post is more of a question about your ATM network, rather than an Insight-ful commentary on how to improve your real-time transaction monitoring and analytics. This week I have questions for you (oh, how the tables have turned!).
In our work with a few different financial institutions, we’ve been asked to solve what we don’t think should be all that isolated a problem.
It seems that often times, banks and credit unions will outsource the management and running of their ATMs. This way these institutions can focus on their core banking services, and take advantage of the cost savings that larger ATM service providers offer. Given that these third party ATM service providers are able to purchase, monitor, and maintain ATMs at scale, this works out to be a good arrangement for both parties.
That said, it has left a few of our customers in the dark, at least as far as ATM transaction monitoring is concerned. As they don’t have access to the actual transaction routing switches, they have to rely on updates and alerts as they come in from their service provider. And these third party alerts may not always be timely, and often won’t arrive before there’s an irate customer on the phone. Our customers were left asking: How can I get access to rich ATM transaction data if I use another provider for my ATM services? How can I see if a:
- Stolen or lost card is used?
- Card capture event occurs?
- Security issue or anomaly appears to originate from “my” ATM?
- PIN verification fails for my customer?
- My customer experiences any number of transaction failures?
…and, can I get alerted when my ATM service provider’s switch or host response time is slower than that agreed upon in my master service agreement?
This information was seen as quite valuable for at least a few banks and credit unions, which is why they became INETCO customers. As the INETCO Insight transaction monitoring and analytics software can capture data from banking networks, it’s possible for you as a bank or credit union to use this solution and set on-screen alerts for issues that occur at your ATMs managed by third parties. INETCO Insight also provides your institution access rich operational intelligence, like: your most popular ATM locations, how specific ATMs are being used, and how well your ATM service provider is ensuring the continuous uptime of machines that your name is attached to.
So my questions to our readership, especially our readership that don’t have access to their ATM transaction switches, are:
- How are you currently gathering your transaction data?
- If you’re not gathering this data yourself, are the alerts that you get from your ATM service provider good, and timely, enough?
- What alerts would be particularly useful for you?
- How do you know if your service provider is meeting their ATM uptime requirements?
As we’re always looking for more ways to improve our software offering to bring even greater value to our partners and customers (of which we hope you are, or will be soon…) your answers and comments are most appreciated. You can leave these in the comment box below, or send me an email: