Windows 10 ATM migration: The breaking point for banks?

by Daryl Cornell, CEO, Triton Systems

The wave of sticker shock and nausea is growing as financial institutions are now receiving their Windows 10 pricing from ATM vendors. 

Core upgrades, ATM rip-and-replace, service calls, OEM maintenance licenses and organizational disruption — big expense without a single dollar in additional revenue. Oh, and you'd better hurry up and commit to a Win10 upgrade now because lead times on those new Win10 ATMs is six months and growing. 

With less than a year left before Windows 7 goes end-of-life, who can blame financial institutions for feeling like they are over the proverbial barrel — again.

For many, this is the final straw: ATMs less than two years old in need of new cores at $5,000–10,000 each; low mileage ATMs less than 10 years old that have no upgrade path at $40,000–60,000 each; growing Windows ATM security vulnerabilities.

In response, financial institutions are now seeking relief from what seems like perpetual ATM upgrade expense and pathetically short product life cycles. Disgruntled Windows ATM owners are discovering that they really do have options, including:

Rebate your customers' ATM fees

Happy to trade in all of those ATM purchase, upgrade, deployment and maintenance expenses for a single monthly cost per customer? 

Want your customers to have free access to all ATMs worldwide without having to search for a particular brand or network? 

Rebating customer ATM fees, capped monthly, may be your answer. Once the domain of banks with geographically dispersed customer bases, ATM fee rebate programs are catching on with banks seeking to offer maximum customer ATM choice at a predictable price. 

Implementation of a customer ATM fee rebate program is one option for Windows ATM owners looking to get off the upgrade hamster wheel.

Outsource your ATM program to a third party

For many financial institutions, ATMs are a necessary evil rather than a core competence. If this is you, a number of third-party ATM operators would love to manage your ATM headaches. 

ATM outsource programs vary widely in terms and pricing. Some vendors will manage your private-label fleet. Others will provide your customers with entry into their network of ATMs, many surcharge-free. 

Whatever the arrangement, outsource ATM programs allow financial institutions to focus on attracting, retaining and servicing customers, offloading many of the headaches associated with overseeing an ATM fleet. 

If you are weary of managing your own fleet but still value ATM branding, an ATM outsource arrangement is another path to get off the upgrade treadmill.

Move to a more cost-effective ATM business model

Contrary to what you may have heard, the Win10 platform is not your only ATM option. In response to the growing level of customer dissatisfaction with Windows ATMs, the ATM Industry Association has been developing a "next-generation" ATM blueprint that appears to be leaning towards Linux or IoT as the ATM industry successor to Windows. 

In the interim, FI ATMs running Windows CE have been reliably dispensing cash for more than 20 years.

Inexpensive, reliable and far less vulnerable to hacking, these ATMs are supported by OEMs for decades — without OEM software license fees.

Upgrades to new versions of CE, and ultimately to IoT, costs hundreds, not tens of thousands of dollars.

Given the accelerating decline of physical check deposit, many financial institutions are rejecting costly Win10 ATMs in favor of inexpensive, secure, reliable ATM cash dispensers.

Whether financial institutions ultimately decide to write a big check for yet another Windows upgrade remains an open question. ATM alternatives to Windows are now under serious discussion in many board rooms — some for the first time.  

For unhappy Windows 7 ATM owners, the cost and pain of upgrading fleets to Win10 may well prove to be the final straw.