Days after its cash machines fell over as part of a wider payments system meltdown, Australian bank NAB has signed for technology from NCR that aims to predict ATM hardware failures.
On Monday the bank discovered a glitch with ATM, EFTPOS, online and phone banking transactions which meant that payments were not processed correctly for several hours, creating a backlog which was not cleared until today.
NCR's Predictive Services technology would not have prevented the problem but the vendor says it will in future help NAB monitor is ATMs, predicting hardware failures before they occur.
The system warns of the imminent failure of individual components, enabling repairs or replacements to be made before they put the machine out of service. It also provides detailed error information so that engineers with the right skills are dispatched with the right parts when needed and some issues can be fixed remotely.
The bank hopes that Predictive Services will help extend the operating life of its 1400-odd fleet of machines, while the proactive support model and the ability to fix problems remotely, without dispatching a technician, will contribute to lower overall operating costs.
NAB is already using the technology in New Zealand, where ATM availability is now 99% and first-line visits have been cut by 30%. Similar improvements across NAB's network will equate to serving customers for an extra 60,000 hours each year, claims NCR.