ATM software standards aim to transform the industry

ATM software has reached a new era. It is now entering the realm of the cloud, as the CEN XFS Standard Committee is pressing forward with its new standard: XFS4IoT.

This standard aims to be truly OS agnostic, while also integrating fully into the cloud. By doing this, ATM operators will more easily be able to integrate more complex tools into their machines.

To learn more about this standard and what it means for the industry, ATM Marketplace spoke with Derek Henderson, senior product manager, NCR Corp. by email.

Q. Can you share some background about the standard?

A. The XFS (extensions for financial services) standard, established by the CEN XFS Standard Committee, provides the common interface specifications between the ATM modules and devices and the financial applications running the ATM. It provides software consistency for all hardware endpoints giving financial institutions (FIs) greater freedom to choose the best-fit technology for their business.

Today, most leading ATM and ATM software vendors provide XFS compliant software that can run on multiple vendors' ATMs. The standard was first conceived back in 1991, with CEN XFS 3.0 released in 2000 and is now used by approximately 92% of ATMs globally. Over the past 20 years, version 2 has evolved through a number of revisions as the financial industry has developed.

XFS4IOT represents a significant transformation of the standard. The perceived major change is that it is operating system (OS) agnostic. However, other key changes are just as important such as the advantages of replacing the XFS manager with WebSocket connections, which enables a more cloud-native approach to the ATM application if desired by the FI, plus greater flexibility, security and a more lightweight, agile framework.

Q. I understand the standard is platform agnostic. How will this help the industry?

A. Being platform agnostic helps futureproof FIs for whatever OS they want to shift to or, probably more significantly, will emerge in the future. We expect vendors and FIs to continue to operate with Microsoft Windows for the next five to seven years due to the level of work required to make the OS change when currently there's not a strong enough alternative to Microsoft. Being platform agnostic is important because XFS4IOT provides greater flexibility for the future — we can't predict what the future developments could be, but we can develop the standard to be more open and simpler to integrate.

Q. How can this standard future proof self-service solutions for the banking industry?

A. In addition to offering flexibility in the choice of OS, XFS4IOT is designed for the cloud. This shift to a cloud-centric architecture fits well with the ATMIA blueprint for Next Generation ATMs which supports running more ATM applications in the cloud to help lower costs and lighten infrastructure. This also means multiple vendors' devices, applications and modules can all be integrated and managed from the cloud. Ultimately this is about more choice as the standard also makes it easier to add modules and devices that wouldn't be seen as traditional to ATMs. Such choice helps expand the role of self-service and grow the transactions and services FIs can offer their customers.

The architecture of XFS4IOT now has a message-based interface, which also delivers better flexibility and compatibility, helping with future-proofing.

Q. What is the future of the standard moving forward?

A. To date, the CEN XFS committee, which is made up of over 30 industry representatives, has been extremely successful in developing standards that benefit the whole industry. The plan is that the standard continues to evolve to meet the future needs of the sector and provide a modernized architecture for FIs to deliver the self-service channel experiences that customers expect, while also being easy, cost-effective and sustainable to manage.