Diebold Switzerland has completed a large-scale upgrade that will change the face of self-service banking for customers of Raiffeisenbanks Switzerland.
The upgrade makes Raiffeisen's automated teller machines (ATMs) compliant with Euro and EMV (Europay, MasterCard, Visa European Global Standard), making way for safer transactions and so-called "express" transactions.
The massive project involved upgrades to more than 750 Diebold ATMs. A total of 180 ATMs were replaced with newer models, 50 of which were replaced with
Diebold Opteva(R) units. The new units passed the Telekurs strict certification process, which is compulsory for all Swiss cash-withdrawal equipment connected to the Telekurs network and the new inter-bank network application, known as BM5.0.
The upgrade makes all Raiffeisen ATMs compliant with Telekurs, Euro and EMV specifications and delivers a number of benefits to customers. Newer specifications allow for faster, "express" transactions at the ATM, which allow people who are visually impaired to repeat the previous transaction with only a few keystrokes. The state-of-the-art software application will also provide for future evolution, such as software downloads, Triple Data Encryption Standard (3DES) and biometric recognition techniques.
"Through our long partnership with Diebold, we know ATM upgrades are a key area of Diebold expertise," said Kilian Stillhart, product manager of payment systems from Swiss Union of Raiffeisenbanks. "The large and varied task ran smoothly and efficiently because Diebold understood the extent of the job and staff trained specifically for hardware stocking, testing and preparation of EMV upgrade kits. Diebold even provided extra training for our staff in the areas of upgrading procedures, support and help-desk details. Our customers are happy that they can now withdraw both Euros and Swiss Francs from the same ATM."
To complete the project, Diebold worked together with the Swiss Union of Raiffeisen Banks, which represents more than 470 Raiffeisen banks, as well as with Raiffeisen Informatics and Zuhlke Engineering. The team developed a completely new software application, which is based on the latest standards including BM5.0, EMV 4.0 L2, XFS 3.0 and Diebold's Agilis(R) platform. In the future, this new application will greatly simplify both maintenance and software testing. Diebold's EMV Kernel application, which is a vehicle for authentication, was also approved by EMVco's certified laboratories.
"For this particular project, each Raiffeisenbank branch had to be dealt with separately, depending on the age of the ATM," explained Felix Germann, marketing and sales manager for Diebold Switzerland. "This involved careful assessment to determine whether the ATM required an upgrade -- and what level of upgrade it required -- or if it would need to be exchanged for a completely new model."
Diebold has provided Raiffeisen with ATM hardware and software for more than a decade, during a time when Raiffeisen grew to become Switzerland's third-largest group of banks, now including more than 1,300 branches.