National Australia Bank is overhauling its network of 1600 ATMs to run on Windows XP and use IP networks.
The overhaul, which commenced in March last year, is part of a seven-year AU$100 million managed services deal with ATM manufacturer NCR, said Jordan Gibbins, head of ATMs and interchange at NAB.
"From July last year, we commenced upgrading our machines that were already deployed out there. Now, we're looking at the entire ATM network, which is close to 1600 ATMs, that should be upgraded by the end of September this year," Gibbins told ZDNet.com.au.
NAB's applications will move away from its legacy OS/2 ATM operating system to Windows, which will make deploying new applications on the ATMs easier, said Gibbins.
"We're upgrading all our communications infrastructure so that it's all Internet protocol, and so that all our ATMs are running on XP... What this does for us is make ATMs a more service-oriented channel, so rather than just cash dispensing, it means, in the future, we have the flexibility to offer more options."
The ATMs are equipped with self-service features such as Intelligent Depositing, which lets customers immediately verify cheques and cash deposited at an ATM — a process that can take days under the current system.
"We won't be deploying Intelligent Depositing at stage one of the rollout. At this stage we will be using the self-healing capabilities of the new ATMs and in the future we can upgrade to Intelligent Depositing capabilities," said Gibbins.
The self-healing capabilities of the new ATMs mean that if confronted by the Windows so-called "blue screen of death", the ATM can revive itself without human intervention, NCR's US chief technology officer, Alan Chow, told ZDNet.com.au.
Other applications the bank is considering deploying are multilingual capabilities, barcode reading, bill payment options and share-trading applications; however, few will be enabled during the early stages of the deployment.
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The new ATMs are also equipped to read chip and PIN credit cards. However, chipped cards are yet to be issued to NAB's customers.
"They will be [chip and PIN] capable but at stage one, we're not enabling that... [Chip and PIN] cards have not been launched yet," said Gibbins.
Security experts have criticised the trend towards employing Windows for ATMs because it introduces greater security risks than ATMs running on OS/2, protected to some extent by its much smaller user base.
"We're very conscious of security. Before deploying anything, it's all tested to make sure it's secure," said Gibbins.
The shift to XP on the bank's ATMs mirrors a change on its desktops. Just this year, the bank completed its desktop operating system overhaul, moving from its ageing NT environment to XP.
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Dean
23/04/2008 01:34 PM
I don't see a problem with running XP on an ATM. It's not like they use the same version of XP as you get on your desktop -- they actually run *embedded* Windows, which is a special componentized version of XP that you can use for embedded devices (such as ATMs and so on). For example, the ATM doesn't have Internet Explorer, Windows Media Player, it doesn't even have a "Start" button, and all that other stuff that you get on a desktop PC -- in fact, other than the kernel and a few APIs, it has very little in common with desktop XP. As for reliability, that's up to the vendor to provide stable device drivers and so on for the specialized hardware in an ATM. The problem is that people are used to Windows crashing all the time, so the vendor can get away with crappy device drivers and just blame it all on "unstable Windows".
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Concerned
24/04/2008 03:51 PM
I dont care how the NAB ATMs run. Perhaps they should consider putting them where people need them, clean them once a week(instead of once a year), get rid of those screens with bullet holes in them, and make the things beep at every key-stroke - not just the first few. NAB ATMs are the pits
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ripntime
24/04/2008 06:45 PM
Personally as an IT guru for 30 years, Bad idea to put any system like this on a os like windows for way too numerous reasons to state here, Sounds like their IT Guy/Gal has limited exposure to the variety of systems out their and took the "so called easy way out". So i will not use their ATMs for many reasons now but mainly for informing eveyone their going with windows XP which kinda says hey thievs/hackers etc come get me. Good to see that the IT guru's that run the nuclear plants etc around the world see that windows is not even on the list of choices, or we would all be mutants today. I'll remember to laugh when i hear their ATM have been compromised.
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john de casto
07/06/2008 11:02 AM
he he he I am so glad I bank with NAB Wow running XP on the ATM's what a excellent idea. just when i though i had problems man some people are crazy
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