ATM Services

Reimagining ATMs – A Journey of Transformation for Efficiency

fsstsprod — Wed, 15 Nov 2023 05:42:35 +0000

Reimagining ATMs – A Journey of Transformation for Efficiency fsstsprod Wed, 11/15/2023 - 11:12

ATMs? Really? Are we still talking about ATMs? In the age of credit cards, QR codes, UPI, tap-and-pay and more, are ATMs even relevant?

Well, a consumer of digital payments would be surprised. But if you’re a banker, you’re probably not. You would know that even though we use digital payments extensively today, as if it’s second nature to us, a large population of our vast country still depends heavily on cash.

The value of currency in circulation has grown exponentially over the years, even after demonetization. According to RBI data, notes in circulation (NIC) was Rs 17.74 lakh crore in November 2016, before demonetization. This number has grown to Rs 32.42 lakh crore by December 2022. And that is just one indicator.

The truth is that Indians still love cash. And this fondness for cash only gets fonder as one moves away from Urban India. Which is why ATMs are relevant even today. Which is also why we have over 2.5 lakh ATMs across the country today and various banks are coming up with more of them.

That said, there is a need for ATMs to be more efficient for banks. As a banker, you would acknowledge that a reactive approach to ATM downtime by simply having manual intervention is not good enough. What we need is technological improvisation and we need it quick.

As a technology-first company, we, at FSS, have recognized how imperative it is to inculcate modern technology like the Internet of Things (IoT), Machine Learning (ML) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) into ATM systems and management. We have developed software systems using these technologies to make ATMs more cost-effective and efficient while enhancing their uptime.

We have done this using a three-pronged approach of being Preventive, Proactive and Predictive. Let's dive deeper.

Preventive: Identifying small problems before they become costlier

Let’s talk about FSS SwiftReach, our app-enabled ATM Hypercare service. With FSS SwiftReach, we provide dedicated manpower for rapid on-field response. We have 400+ Business Champions in our fleet with 1 Business Champion dedicated for every 30 ATMs.

Our Business Champions carry out much-needed routine inspections periodically and are trained to reach ATMs faster for root cause analysis at the ground level. In case of non-resolutions, FSS SwiftReach sends out automatic escalations to the next level.

All of this is done using our app-based technology to ensure due diligence in resolving incidents, addressing incidents faster by reducing dependency on vendor partners and getting truer insights and better field reach.

Prevention, we all know, is better than cure. And for ATMs, no one does it better than FSS SwiftReach.

Proactive: Timely action to identify the root cause of potential issues

While being preventive helps, being proactive helps a lot more. FSS is equipped with A Third Eye, our AI-based intelligence surveillance. A Third Eye’s tech-enabled automated workflow automatically creates ATM site hygiene and creates alerts. The system is built using ML that is trained on millions of ATM site images. It boasts of >95% accuracy in creating site cleanliness alerts for immediate resolutions.

At the same time, another one of our proactive approaches is on-demand, real-time EJ Pulling Services. This system comes with simple file transfer scheduling, all-in-one reader and industry-standard encryption. Our EJ Pulling Services proactively prevent frauds while being vendor-agnostic and adaptable with new ATM models.

Predictive: Using data to monitor equipment and predict failure

And finally, being predictive by augmenting ATM monitoring with IoT. Our IoT-enabled devices help monitor individual equipment and predict failure. This device monitors all types of equipment at an ATM site, from air conditioners to routers to UPS and even lobby lights.

This 24x7x365 monitoring auto-detects ATM issues in real time, enabling 6/10 issues to be resolved instantly without the need to deploy a field agent. The result: 60% improved efficiency in issue handling.

This is how technology helps FSS improve ATM efficiency by over 50% in day-to-day operations. This leads to faster instance resolution and higher uptime.

What gives FSS the edge in tech-enabled ATM services is in-house infrastructure, strong compliance & industry-level certifications, and a skilled & experienced resource pool. Our 3-decade long legacy in the payments space has made us one of the top 3 ATM Managed Services companies in India and the use of modern technology is going to further help us enable economies at scale.

Find out more here: https://www.fsstech.com/atm-services/managed-service

Enhancing the Cost-Effectiveness & Efficiency of ATMs with IoT, AI & ML

fsstsprod — Wed, 15 Nov 2023 05:22:54 +0000

Enhancing the Cost-Effectiveness & Efficiency of ATMs with IoT, AI & ML fsstsprod Wed, 11/15/2023 - 10:52

Cash is king! We've all heard and probably even used this colloquial phrase. While we’re unsure of its origin, the phrase became popular after the global stock market crash in 1987. But the question that we’re asking today is, “Is cash still the king in India?”

If you live in Urban India, you would probably say no. But the story is quite different in the rural regions of our country. Here’s a personal anecdote from our CEO, V Balasubramanian.

During one of his tours, he happened to be passing through a village when he was being driven from one city to another. They stopped for tea in the village’s central area. Along with the tea stall, a couple of small food places and a grocery store, the area also had an ATM. He was intrigued to see some villagers milling around the ATM. There weren’t just men there, even women and children.

After watching them for a while, he realised why they were hanging around the ATM. An ATM cash van drove up to the site and the handlers started to replenish the ATM with cash. V Balasubramanian realised that this was what the villagers were waiting for. Cash replenishment in the ATM was a major event for them. He could see the joy on their faces.

When he told us this story in one of our organisation’s townhall, V Balasubramanian equated the villagers’ joy with the kind of joy he used to feel while scanning a QR code to make a payment in the early days of UPI. Today, UPI transactions have become routine to us, but on the other hand, people in many parts of the country are still in awe of cash disbursals from ATMs.

The use of cash is still very much prevalent all through India, even after the advent and progress of digital payments. This is why all major and minor banks have plans to expand their ATM network. But just installing new ATMs is not enough, banks have to ensure that these ATMs are efficient as well. ATM efficiency, after all, directly impacts a bank’s bottomline.

To do this, banks need to partner with a company like FSS. As a technology-focused enterprise, FSS acknowledges the critical importance of integrating cutting-edge technologies such as the Internet of Things (IoT), Machine Learning (ML), and Artificial Intelligence (AI) into ATM systems and management.

Our software systems leverage these technologies to enhance the cost-effectiveness and efficiency of ATMs while increasing their uptime through the following three ways.

Identifying issues before they escalate

Consider FSS SwiftReach, our app-enabled ATM Hypercare service. With this initiative, we deploy a dedicated workforce for swift on-field responses. Our fleet includes over 400 Business Champions, with one assigned to every 30 ATMs. These champions conduct routine inspections and are trained to promptly analyze root causes at the ground level.

In case of unresolved issues, FSS SwiftReach automatically escalates the matter to the next level. Utilizing app-based technology ensures diligence in incident resolution, reduces reliance on vendor partners, and provides more accurate insights with broader field reach.

In the realm of ATMs, FSS SwiftReach excels at prevention, proving that preventing issues is more effective than curing them.

Taking timely action to address potential issues

FSS employs "A Third Eye," an AI-based intelligence surveillance system, which is a tech-enabled workflow that creates alerts for ATM site hygiene based on millions of trained images, achieving over 95% accuracy. Additionally, our on-

demand, real-time EJ Pulling Services, featuring simple file transfer scheduling and industry-standard encryption, proactively prevents frauds. This system is vendor-agnostic and adaptable to new ATM models.

Using data to anticipate failures

To further augment ATM monitoring, FSS adopts a predictive approach through IoT-enabled devices. These devices monitor individual equipment, from air conditioners to routers to UPS, predicting failures and issues. With 24/7 monitoring, 60% of issues are resolved instantly without deploying field agents, resulting in a 60% improvement in efficiency.

In summary, FSS utilizes technology to enhance ATM efficiency in day-to-day operations, leading to faster issue resolution and increased uptime. Our advantage in tech-enabled ATM services stems from in-house infrastructure, robust compliance, industry-level certifications, and a skilled and experienced resource pool.

With a three-decade legacy in the payments space, FSS stands as one of the top three ATM Managed Services companies in India, and the integration of modern technology will further enable economies at scale.

Find out more here: https://www.fsstech.com/atm-services/managed-service

Redefining the Future of ATMs

fsstsprod — Fri, 10 Nov 2023 06:56:16 +0000

Redefining the Future of ATMs fsstsprod Fri, 11/10/2023 - 12:26

Envisioning a world of interconnected devices that seamlessly communicate and gather data

India has more than 2.5 lakh ATMs. However, regulatory directives to enhance security measures at the ATM site, maintain cash supply, penalties by the regulatory body and the need to provide a superior customer experience is severely impacting profitability of running an ATM for most financial institutions.

At FSS, we are redefining the future of ATMs in the country by making technological advancements through IoT enablement, AI based intelligence and process automations. We are leveraging tech to move away from a reactive approach of handling ATM downtimes with manual intervention and are now providing predictive, preventive and proactive measures for optimizing ATM operations and reducing time delays in outage resolutions.

Interconnected IoT and AI/ML enabled ATM site

FSS IoT Services provide real-time visibility of ATMs and their peripherals, empowering banks to maintain better governance and control. Imagine an ATM that detects your presence as you enter, adjusting its internal temperature automatically for a pleasant experience.

Current ATMs face critical security risks and maintenance challenges, necessitating smarter solutions. Our IoT and Earthing Voltage Sensors provide heightened protection against voltage surges, safeguarding ATMs from damage and preventing downtime.

Augmenting monitoring with IoT

Present ATM monitoring solutions are not able to identify or predict its point of failure, hence causing a time delay in its resolution. FSS is now augmenting its real-time ATM Monitoring solution with IoT enabled devices that will help monitor individual equipment and predict failure.

6/10 ATM Outages resolved instantly without deploying a field agent

The Third Eye - AI surveillance

An AI based intelligent surveillance system, the Third Eye is capable of detecting unclean sites automatically. And not just that, it also automates issue resolution with advanced tech workflows from ticket generation, capturing site images, flagging sites and confirming clean status to close the ticket.

>95% Accuracy in site cleanliness alerts for immediate resolution and always on surveillance

Automated real-time EJ pulling

Create EJ pull requests in real-time to proactively prevent frauds, integrate easily with new ATM models, simplify file transfer scheduling, collection and distribution, enhance readability, optimize data, security and network utilization, all on a vendor agnostic solution with centralized storage.

Deep insights with ATM analytics

Collecting data from multiple site touch points is helping us build predictive analytics to foresee equipment failure, prepare for downtimes or outages, and better operationalize resources to optimize ATM management.

Two-way action Internet of Things for remote resolution and visibility

FSS IoT Services enable remote connectivity with ATM sites with which operators can now communicate with every individual component on site. This two-way communication not only assists in monitoring the device and collecting data, but also enables sending instructions to control the devices remotely, in turn giving a centralized remote access to all ATM sites within the network.

Celebrating 54 years of ATMs

fsstiprod — Fri, 25 Jun 2021 15:41:30 +0000

Celebrating 54 years of ATMs fsstiprod Fri, 06/25/2021 - 21:11

The 27^th of June has been declared as the World ATM Day. It was on this day in 1967that the first Automated Teller Machine was installed at a Barclays Bank branch in London. The world owes a lot to John Shepherd Baron, the inventor of the ATM. This machine has now become common place in most parts of the world today. They are found at bank branches, busy marketplaces, airports, hospitals, train and bus stations, shopping malls, universities, large townships, tourist spots, convention centres and even in trains and ships! We can even find ATMs in the Andaman & Nicobar Islands and at high mountain ranges in the Ladakh, Arunachal Pradesh and Sikkim region in India!

Over the last 54 years, the ATM has metamorphosed from a clunky, stand-alone contraption to a sleek-faced, multi-networked, IOT enabled device which can do many more things than dispensing cash. ATMs today have the capability of dispensing cash without inserting a card. Automated Cash Recyclers (ACRs) can not only dispense cash, but also accept different denominations of deposit directly into customer accounts. ATMs are also getting integrated into multi-function kiosks which can offer a wide range of services, from account opening to the issuance of debit cards, apart from the bill payment and funds transfer capabilities they already have.

ATMs came to India somewhere in the eighties through the branches of foreign banks and were the most coveted and awe-inspiring technology marvels of that period. In the early nineties, a few Indian banks caught on to it and by the mid-nineties, with the setting up of new private sector banks, ATMs started becoming a necessity at all metro and urban branches, to provide24X7 access of cash to customers. The ATMs installed in those days were off-line i.e. not connected to any backend but dispensing cash based on limits set and encoded on the card. They then became semi-online i.e. connected to the server at the branch and finally, in the late nineties and early years of the 21^st century, they became fully online i.e. connected to a centralized switching application. But customers could still not withdraw from any bank’s ATM. They had to necessarily use the ATM of their bank. In 1997, IBA (Indian Banks Association) set up the Swadhan network, the first network of shared ATMs in India. FSS played a pivotal role in the formation of Swadhan network. In the early 2008, with the setting up of the National Financial Switch (NFS) under the aegis of NPCI (National Payments Corporation of India Ltd.) which is a not-for-profit Section 8 company set up by banks, inter-operability between ATMs of various banks connected to the NFS network, became a reality.

Over the last twenty years, ATMs in India have changed from being an exclusive device for premium customers in urban areas to being the agents of social change, supporting financial inclusion across towns and remote villages of India. Mass banking could not have been possible in this country without ATMs providing the much-needed cash dispensation points for millions of customers. All the ATMs in India together dispense an average of 2600 billion rupees per month, which is more than 10% of the currency in circulation in the country. Banks have effectively used ATMs to provide basic banking services to customers at any time of the day and in a cost-effective manner. ATMs have even reached out to the populace in times of need. ATMs on mobile vans have provided salaries to workers at remote factory locations; these vans have also gone to places affected by natural calamities, providing much needed cash to the population. ATMs on wheels, have driven down to large societies to enable residents to withdraw cash during the lockdown last year. ATMs provide wages to plantation workers in the remote tea estates of Assam. One can never forget the long winding queues at the ATMs in the aftermath of the demonetization announcement made by the Government of India on November 8, 2016.

Demonetization has been a turning point for ATM growth in India. From more than 8-10% growth year on year in the number of ATMs prior to 2016, the growth has slowed down to 2-3% on an annual basis. But the country still needs a lot more ATMs. As compared to the world average of 50 ATMs per 1 lakh population, India is way below, at an average of 28 ATMs per 1 lakh population, even much lower than China, which is at 98 ATMs per one lakh population and Brazil, which is at 105 ATMs per one lakh population. The distribution of ATMs within India is also very skewed, with metropolitan cities having 53 ATMs per one lakh population, urban areas having 69 ATMs per one lakh population, semi-urban areas having 53 ATMs per one lakh population and the rural areas having a paltry 9 ATMs per one lakh population. Thus, the need for more ATM deployment is very apparent. But over the last few years, the increasing cost of logistics and regulatory compliance for ATMs and the emergence of digital payment options like UPI, had made banks re-think their ATM deployment and expansion strategy.

Banks and independent ATM deployers (IADs), have now realized that ATMs or their advanced version, the ACR (Automated Cash Recycler) are very much needed in India to service the cash requirements of population. Digital payments, especially UPI, may have grown multi-fold during this period, but cash remains the engine oil of the economy. And what best way to dispense cash and accept deposits than through the ubiquitous ATM/ACR? A further boost has been given to this, with the increase in interchange rate i.e. the charge per transaction that an ATM owning bank/IAD will levy on the bank that issued the card. This increase will be effective from the 1^st of August this year.

In the coming days, we will be seeing ATMs reclaiming their rightful spot as the accelerators of economic and inclusive growth. They will surely jostle for space among the other dispensation models like UPI, micro-ATMs, e-wallets etc. but the need of this great country is such that there will be enough play for all methods of end point dispensation.

Radha Rama Dorai

Senior Vice President - ATM Business