The updates to Level Four's BRIDGE:test, Regression Test Manager (RTM) and ATM Developer products enable banks to create and run a greater number of tests more rapidly, therefore maintaining higher levels of ATM uptime for consumers while reducing the time and cost invested for banks.

Ian Kerr, CEO of Level Four, says, "Many banks' ATM test strategies fail to adequately cover all the required scenarios, leaving them vulnerable to costly and unnecessary network downtime. We continually invest into R&D each year to ensure that our test automation solutions retain an industry leading position. This latest product offering is testament to our commitment to deliver the best software and services to our customers, enabling them to focus time and resource on revenue-generating ATM activities."

The new versions of Level Four's products, v2.11, include several changes to the hardware device modelling layer, a refreshed user interface and some significant changes to Regression Test Manager. To support this investment, Level Four is also expanding its product team with a number of recent hires.

The updates are all aimed at supporting automation best practices and making test case creation and long term maintenance easier. For example, baseline test data and test rules are no longer tied together. Using v2.11, financial institutions can create rules that are completely stand-alone. This change means that fewer rule sets need to be created and if changes are made there is no need to re-execute every test, saving customers' valuable time.

Colin Fraser, Product Development Manager at Level Four, says, "The key points in creating a good test automation system are similar to common software engineering principles. We have increased the ability to share scripts and rules between multiple test cases. This means that when the application inevitably changes, the automated tests can be updated with a minimum of effort. We have also made more provisions for scalability to keep pace with our customers' needs and ensure that test cases are more focused for optimum speed and accuracy."