It calculates and analyzes the costs of implementing, maintaining and operating complex self-service solutions made up of hardware, software and services.

The tool - ToCOSS: Total Cost of Ownership for Self-Service Retail Banking - examines costs for everything from end-user devices to central systems in the background. It outlines a number of investment scenarios built around an array of parameters. Based on factors that include the cost of acquiring new hardware or software, integration costs, the expense of operating the data center or maintaining and monitoring the various systems, for example, ToCOSS then calculates the costs for the entire product lifecycle of a self-service network (TCO - Total Cost of Ownership).

The new tool is useful whenever banks are planning investments in their self-service networks - in hardware, but particularly in the integration of new software. It helps banks forecast what impact migration to new multivendor applications or integration in multichannel architectures will have on TCO.

The bank's IT managers can then base their decisions on solid analyses. The TCO analysis delivers investment protection, creates cost transparency and identifies savings potential.