NCR Managed Services Increases the Availability of More Than 2,000 Self-Service Systems at German Savings Banks

More and more German savings banks are choosing to outsource the monitoring, analysis and repair of their self-service systems to NCR’s Managed Services business. The outsourcing allows them to increase the availability of their self-service offering while creating additional room for improvement. In the past twelve months alone, more than 20 savings banks in Germany signed an Incident Management agreement with NCR, entrusting NCR with more than 2,000 automated teller machines (ATMs), cash recyclers and statement printers. The services provided by NCR help financial institutions further develop their business and achieve a more economical operation of their self-service systems.

"NCR Incident Management allows the banks to increase the availability of their self-service networks by around 0.5–1.5 percentage points to more than 98 percent. This means that self-service systems are available to customers for an additional hour or two per system each week where service would otherwise be refused due to empty cassettes or preventable downtime,” says Thomas Firatan, sales director Sparkassen with NCR GmbH. "The banks profit doubly, both from increased customer satisfaction and from additional transactions – that is, the volume of business acquired through the self-service channel.”

In the event of an error message, NCR Incident Management triggers the system to automatically generate a ticket, which would otherwise need to be done manually by an employee. For instance, the fully automated repairs system involves communicating detailed information to the technical field staff so that they can tailor error handling accordingly, and triggering the armored cash transport company to fill the ATMs as needed. Service providers are thus notified in real time, facilitating significantly shorter reaction and repair times, which in turn ensure greater channel availability. The faster, more efficient processes resulting from this extensive automation translate into considerably less workload from the IT organization staff, allowing them to concentrate on other tasks. At the same time, the costs to run the systems decrease.

Detailed status reports prevent malfunction

Using its unique approach to Incident Management, NCR proactively monitors and analyses the self-service networks of the different savings banks in real time. This allows NCR to identify errors and their causes at an early stage and trigger rapid solutions. This will involve reading out some 2,000 individual system status reports and using NCR's global network of diagnostics servers to evaluate the data for any signs of disruptions. In this way, any faults that may occur can often be identified and resolved before an ATM failure occurs.

The "NCR@YourService” web portal allows the IT department at every savings bank to observe the events in real time and to follow ticket generation in detail at system level. Search and filter options in NCR@YourService offer a more in-depth analysis and provide an overview of the past and current statuses of the self-service system.

As a global IT service provider, NCR currently manages more than 40,000 ATM systems and boasts extensive experience in the running, monitoring and high availability management of self-service networks.

About NCR Corporation

NCR Corporation (NYSE: NCR) is a global technology company leading how the world connects, interacts and transacts with business. NCR’s assisted- and self-service solutions and comprehensive support services address the needs of retail, financial, travel, healthcare, hospitality, entertainment, gaming and public sector organizations in more than 100 countries. NCR (www.ncr.com) is headquartered in Duluth, Georgia.

NCR is a trademark of NCR Corporation in the United States and other countries.