Where's the ATM industry headed?

Within the ATM industry, certain issues are omnipresent, such as security concerns, software upgrades and dealing with cashless trends. However, the more time I spend in this space, the more I notice certain trends are filtering into the industry and slowly leading to big changes.

Recently, I attended the ATMIA conference in New Orleans, Louisiana where I got a chance to speak to multiple movers and shakers within the industry as well as attend panels and keynotes. During my time here, I picked up on a few key trends that point to where I believe the industry is going.

First of all, the industry is beginning to embrace self-service in a big way. This may seem like an oxymoron at first, since ATMs are self-service machines, but historically the industry has distanced itself from the self-service kiosk market. But that day is coming to an end.

At the event, Hyosung unveiled its brand Innovue, a revamp that aims to deliver innovative experiences for customers including in new markets such as hospitality.

"Our company has a long history of harnessing its unique combination of a manufacturer's soul with an innovator's mindset to build a platform of ATM and cash-management solutions," Sanghwan Kweon, CEO of Hyosung America, said in a press release. "We are opening the aperture to extend our value creation deeper into financial services and retail while we bring our platform of integrated solutions to new verticals including hospitality and travel."

At ATMIA, in particular, I noticed multiple companies that work with both kiosk and ATM vendors. Also, I saw some companies that integrated advertising into ATMs so retailers and banks can sell digital signage advertising space.

This self-service trend also goes into the banking and payments space as well, as Hyosung showcased its video banking solution, which allows a customer to speak with a live representative from the machine, which in turn can expand a bank's footprint.

In addition, I saw many ATMs that are now offering bill payment services, including to unbanked customers.

When it comes to these services, the ATM industry is also embracing a tool that can power these solutions as well as many more. That tool is of course the cloud.

With the cloud, ATM operators can access multiple tools without having to invest in expensive hosting equipment. The XFS4IoT standard in particular is powering forward with the cloud. Managed by the CEN/XFS committee, this platform agnostic standard for ATMs is cloud native.

"Cloud native enables you to integrate devices from multiple manufactures," Rob Hunter, head of sales and business development for North America at KAL ATM Software, said during a panel at ATMIA.

The cloud opens many possibilities, including being able to offer features remotely such as bitcoin purchasing or selling. Leland Englebardt, president of E-Squared Inc., told me that the cloud offers an easy way for companies to deploy bitcoin purchasing or remove it if customers don't show as much interest.

There are many other topics I could discuss here, such as the growth of bitcoin ATMs, or security trends to combat theft, but overall it's safe to say that this industry is moving into a new world.

In the new world, an ATM will no longer just be a tool to dispense cash. It will be an innovative machine that can offer self-service banking, bill payment, cryptocurrency services, advertising and more. It will become a larger part of the overall self-service ecosystem that is taking every industry by storm.

All that being said, the ATM will not leave behind its bread and butter. One thing that was quite clear at the event was that while cash is certainly hurting, it isn't going anywhere and the ATM will continue to be around to meet the need for cash worldwide.