NCR's ATM Monitoring and Management offer now includes Transaction, Cash and Cash-in-Transit (CiT) Monitoring services, designed to assist financial institutions (FIs) with the complexities of managing the ATM or self-service channel.

Today, financial institutions are hit with a three-punch combination when it comes to channel management. First, self-service is becoming increasingly important as an avenue for growth in a highly-competitive marketplace. The ATM remains the most frequent point of interaction for the majority of customers and potential new customers. At the same time, FIs are relying on self-service even more to drive branch efficiency gains, as standard transactions move to self-service from the more expensive teller line. Finally, today's complex transactions, such as Intelligent Deposit, place more technical demands on the ATM. The result is a self-service channel that has become more important as a customer service touchpoint and yet more challenging to maintain.

This complexity is address by NCR with these value-added enhancements:

• Transaction Monitoring constantly monitors the number of transactions, reversals or denials at an ATM and compares them to agreed hourly thresholds. This frequent monitoring against expected norms provides near-immediate awareness to any unusual or unexpected activity and invokes the prescribed actions to proactively manage ATM availability. Additionally, the detailed view of reversals and denials provides data to quickly pinpoint fraudulent activities.
• Cash Monitoring, which proactively monitors the cash levels in the ATM network, offers two cash thresholds for each ATM. This allows greater accuracy in identifying potential "cash-out" scenarios. In turn, availability is increased due to reduced cash outs. Because these potential cash outs are detected sooner, costly emergency cash runs can be eliminated.
• CiT Monitoring provides real-time tracking of CiT replenishment activity. This service provides an accurate record of whether the replenishments occurred, if they were performed on time and within the agreed time period, and how many were scheduled but not performed at all. The detailed reporting provides the FI customer with increased CiT performance awareness and business management.

John Di Leo, NCR's vice president of Customer Services for Financial Solutions, said, "Every institution is different when it comes to the level of available resources to maintain their ever-changing ATM channel. More FIs are realizing that ongoing ATM service requirements are not core to their business, yet place more challenges upon their operations. The continued expansion of NCR's Managed Services portfolio demonstrates our commitment to provide ATM deployers with solutions focused on availability and on enabling consumer interactions."