ATM Software Trends For 2011

a fixed part of the banking experience and a key way in which bank customers can extract money from their account to pay for everyday goods and services. Indeed, the fact that the ATM has been in common use for decades means that many people take its facilities for granted, dismissing its capabilities as simply those of a cash dispenser.

However, modern ATMs are under constant development and offer customers much more than access to cash. Mobile top-ups, deposits, money transfer services and much more are now available from today’s machines and, as ATM software improves, so too will the user experience offered by ATMs. So what does 2011 have in store for ATM technology?

ATM security and branch transformation

Each year, one of the primary concerns for ATM software developers is the improvement of security measures. Since the ATM first appeared as a widely used banking machine, its security has been a concern for both customers and banks as well. This is because ATM access is dependent on a card and PIN system, both of which may be easily susceptible to theft.

One ATM security solution that could gain traction in 2011 is finger vein authentication technology, now widely used in Japanese banks but still under-explored elsewhere. Finger vein ID technology is a biometric solution that works in a similar way to fingerprint recognition technology by recognising the vein pattern in a finger rather than its print. However, its supporters claim that it has far greater accuracy than the latter and therefore offers ATM customers much tighter security. As the benefits of finger vein authentication technology become more apparent to banks outside Japan, it’s likely that g