HQ location: Duluth, Ga.
Number of employees: 21,000
Bill Nuti, CEO
Ask NCR Corp.'s chief executive Bill Nuti what his company's biggest accomplishment in the past 12 months was, he'll tell you Scalable Deposit Module.
The technology, which allows multiple checks and cash to be deposited at once in the same ATM slot, is catching on at banks. Soon after the product's rollout in October 2010, Wells Fargo ordered hundreds of machines equipped with the module in branches nationwide. JPMorgan Chase also deployed the equipment, and several more top-10 retail banking companies were doing pilot tests or placing orders.
"No question, it is our biggest innovation of the past several years, and one that will go down in history for our company as being one of our best innovations," Nuti says.
The ATM maker sees the module as a point of differentiation.
NCR's closest competitors, Diebold and Wincor Nixdorf, offer envelope-free deposit on their machines; Diebold doesn't have the mixed-media feature.
"But when customers come and see this, it's definitely a 'Whoa'-factor product," Nuti says. "It's quite unique and the innovation that is underneath that module is very hard if not impossible to replicate."
The company plans to update its machines in light of MasterCard's decision to bring its EMV chip cards to the U.S. The move is meant to help mitigate fraud.
Fraud and guided self-service are major components of NCR's strategy, leading the firm to also move toward EMV compliant machines.
Skimming causes average losses of $50,000 per affected ATM and three times as much crime takes place using debit cards as credit cards, according to Aite Group. Diebold is also building EMV-accepting ATMs for international customers. EMV is the chip and PIN payment standard that's popular in Europe, but has been slow to catch on in the United States, based on the substantial cost of migration for point of sale terminals and other devices. However, many merchants are concerned that the U.S.' reluctance to embrace EMV will make it an isolated target for skimmers and other criminals. Some banks and financial institutions have begun to offer EMV compliant cards for international travelers, a trend NCR is tapping into with its introduction of EMV-compliant machine.
Also, with an eye on the nocturnal, NCR has developed its Aptra Interactive Teller, which uses a built-in camera to connect any customer to a human bank representative at a distant location, even late at night. That teller has the ability to control the ATM remotely, helping users through complex transactions. In effect, a bank branch could be open 24 hours a day.
This technology was developed in partnership with uGenius Technology of Sandy, Utah, which provides video technology for financial services in what it calls personal teller machines.
The two companies have been talking for the past two years.
Nuti says mixed-media deposit is just a step along the way to further developments.
The Duluth, Ga., company is bullish on the notion of merged channels, where when you visit the ATM your account information is instantly updated across all bank communication outlets — mobile, Internet and branch.
"Our future is really in helping our customers integrate all of these bespoke channels and market across all of those channels effectively," Nuti says.
