More than a half of UniCredito Italiano's 3338 ATMs are NCR machines. Under the terms of the contract, NCR will provide support for both NCR and Diebold ATMs.

UniCredito is currently going through a period of reorganisation, moving from a federal structure to an international multi-specialist business model. As a result, the bank has decided to reduce its number of vendors in the areas of self-service maintenance and software.

Fabio Polzot, channel manager at UniCredito Italiano, explains: "We have undertaken a strategic review of our hardware, software and services with the aim of enhancing the performance and availability of our self-service channel. We made a decision to have one vendor maintain our financial self-service hardware. We chose to go with NCR on the basis of our previous experience with them and the channel management offer they proposed."

This announcement follows UniCredito Italiano's decision last year to choose NCR as its single multi-vendor software supplier. The bank will use NCR's Aptra software for Web-based channels and to provide a platform for additional new services in the future.

Seperately, NCR says it is working with ACI to drive uptake of the IFX standard for Web-enabled ATMs. The companies say they will work together to implement IFX messaging standards within their respective solutions.

Jim Piggot, general manager of NCR's software and services for the global financial solutions division, comments: "The non-proprietary IFX message specification has caught the attention of leading financial institutions that have been slow to transition to so-called `web-enabled' automated teller machines (ATMs) due to existing proprietary platforms. The IFX standard enables the adoption of one message standard to run across all channels, including ATM and point-of-sale (POS) networks."