ABSA ATMs are getting a refresh

not a fan of the changes. it seems slower. I also found the screen where I had to enter my pin slightly annoying, has to search for the ***

Also, selecting the account twice is silly (once before entering the pin and again after selecting the amount).
 
Paying utility bills will help; hopefully those people that pay their utility bills at PnP will use the ATM instead (please).
 
ColinR said:
Paying utility bills will help; hopefully those people that pay their utility bills at PnP will use the ATM instead (please).
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If those idiots haven't learnt to use online banking yet, they're certainly not going to use an ATM.

FNB did a fantastic job with their new ATMs implemented earlier in the year. Couldn't be happier :D
 
With all the money ABSA makes they could have spent a bit more on this software. I used the new system the other day and it was worse than the old one by far. When I used it I was so upset I really thought about changing banks. God know the only thing ABSA has going for it is that there is an ATM at every corner in any direction. :p
 
hambone said:
Three years to roll this out?! Typical for a bank that doesn't care about its customers.
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I did consulting work at the blue bank when they started rolling out their new software a few years ago... Trust me theres a lot more to it than simply just pushing software to the machine. Remember that the fleet of machines t hat BLAPSA has is a mix of brand new and machines that are older than I am. Ive seen AT&T ABSA machines. Keep in mind drivers differ between machine types, some have hard drives that aren't big enough, some need more memory before the new software will run properly etc...

Then you also have to keep in mind that these machines normally run win XP CE. Its a good idea to get a clean install with such a major software upgrade (imaging makes this easier I know).

Trust me its a nightmare getting new software to run properly on the entire fleet. :)

3years to cover about 5000 (a guess) ATMs sounds quite fair IMHO
 
jouda said:
3years to cover about 5000 (a guess) ATMs sounds quite fair IMHO
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I disagree. Three years in today's terms is a very long time. Three years from now all those machines could very well be redundant. I'm yet to be convinced that without better management and more money this process could be complete by June 2012. I mean seriously? Three years?! Three years from now I could be doing anything that machine does on my cell phone.

If they have old machines, get new ones maybe? All i'm saying is that ABSA makes a fortune off of its customers surely it can afford to replace those machines with new ones. In the same way that FNB has done on a MUCH larger scale. Then by all means use imaging to update them uniformly.

As for the blue bank, they have new machines?! I still have to bring a pen to the one here in Grahamstown to push the 0 button.
 
jouda said:
I did consulting work at the blue bank when they started rolling out their new software a few years ago... Trust me theres a lot more to it than simply just pushing software to the machine. Remember that the fleet of machines t hat BLAPSA has is a mix of brand new and machines that are older than I am. Ive seen AT&T ABSA machines. Keep in mind drivers differ between machine types, some have hard drives that aren't big enough, some need more memory before the new software will run properly etc...

Then you also have to keep in mind that these machines normally run win XP CE. Its a good idea to get a clean install with such a major software upgrade (imaging makes this easier I know).

Trust me its a nightmare getting new software to run properly on the entire fleet. :)

3years to cover about 5000 (a guess) ATMs sounds quite fair IMHO
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^^ What he said.

I also worked at the Blue Bank on their ATM software. This is a pretty complex piece of software and the requirement (hardware and software) and even more complex. Getting to role out to about 10 000 (blue) atm's is quite an excersize.
 
hambone said:
I disagree. Three years in today's terms is a very long time. Three years from now all those machines could very well be redundant. I'm yet to be convinced that without better management and more money this process could be complete by June 2012. I mean seriously? Three years?! Three years from now I could be doing anything that machine does on my cell phone.

If they have old machines, get new ones maybe? All i'm saying is that ABSA makes a fortune off of its customers surely it can afford to replace those machines with new ones. In the same way that FNB has done on a MUCH larger scale. Then by all means use imaging to update them uniformly.

As for the blue bank, they have new machines?! I still have to bring a pen to the one here in Grahamstown to push the 0 button.
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You clearly don't have a clue what goes into all of this?!?! It took the blue bank almost 4 years to get their new atm software out to every machine.
 
MielieSpoor said:
^^ What he said.

I also worked at the Blue Bank on their ATM software. This is a pretty complex piece of software and the requirement (hardware and software) and even more complex. Getting to role out to about 10 000 (blue) atm's is quite an excersize.
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Okay, but why can the bank not simpily redesign their machines and install one machine that does everything and can be updated uniformly instead of fiddling with the outdated ones?
 
MielieSpoor said:
You clearly don't have a clue what goes into all of this?!?! It took the blue bank almost 4 years to get their new atm software out to every machine.
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I obviously don't have a clue: but from a customer perspective i'm not convinced that four years is acceptable to update the machines. Some of those STD Bank machines are out of the Arc! Is it impossible to just have one machine, that's new and "future proof" (as far as future proof can be expected)?

I'm not trolling, i'm genuinely interested in this BTW.
 
hambone said:
Okay, but why can the bank not simpily redesign their machines and install one machine that does everything and can be updated uniformly instead of fiddling with the outdated ones?
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I worked at a company that serviced and maintained atm's and i was told it costs R350k+ to install an atm. Not sure how true that is though.

Sent from my GT-I9000 using Tapatalk
 
hambone said:
Okay, but why can the bank not simpily redesign their machines and install one machine that does everything and can be updated uniformly instead of fiddling with the outdated ones?
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Because the days of mainframe is over. These days you install a thick client that does the work and not just a terminal.

Like I said, ATM software is a complex piece of software that you can't afford to give any soft of error - you ware working with people's money. You have to get it right the first time round.

Certain ATM's has got certain function that others don't have. This also needs to be kept in mind. All the ATM for standard bank was replaced with Windows XP machines when they deployed the new software. There was one or two Win 2000 machines left, but they should've been replaced by now. Can't remember bout the CE machines, but there was a couple of them also.

Like I say, its not a POS app that you can just publish and in an hour or two its deployed country wide.
 
hambone said:
Okay, but why can the bank not simpily redesign their machines and install one machine that does everything and can be updated uniformly instead of fiddling with the outdated ones?
Click to expand...

That is normally what happens, but again, many different machines, many images, hard to manage. Normally what happens is that standard images are created, but older machines may sometimes have a odd piece of hardware due to maintenance (thinking specifically of gfx cards). Also you cant push this over the network, an upgrade of this scale requires a hdd swap atleast. Also these machines have different network connections, all of which needs to be set up specifically for the machine (static ip etc.). These machines will have to be configured as well, unique name etc. Using AD has its own issues. One machine upgrade = one visit to site (if you are lucky). Remember that some of these machines are in a terrible state which results in the techie doing more than what was planned for during a simple upgrade.
 
hambone said:
I obviously don't have a clue: but from a customer perspective i'm not convinced that four years is acceptable to update the machines. Some of those STD Bank machines are out of the Arc! Is it impossible to just have one machine, that's new and "future proof" (as far as future proof can be expected)?

I'm not trolling, i'm genuinely interested in this BTW.
Click to expand...

One ATM can cost upto 350k... if it works let it work. :) The older machines gets serviced regularly and sometimes the box (cpu mobo ram etc) get replaced.
 
MielieSpoor said:
Certain ATM's has got certain function that others don't have. This also needs to be kept in mind.
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Let me rephrase that. All ATM's got the same functionality/features (exact same software). Where the complexity comes in is with the fact that you need to display certain features to the customer according to his accound profile - source of a lot of bugs...

Two people with the exact same account will see diffirent things at the ATM because their profiles are diffirent. You might have linked homelone, I don't etc.

All this needs to be tested and tested properly.

An ATM consist of more than just the computer inside of it. They can upgrade the computer without touching the 'shell' what you see.
 
MielieSpoor said:
Because the days of mainframe is over. These days you install a thick client that does the work and not just a terminal.

Like I said, ATM software is a complex piece of software that you can't afford to give any soft of error - you ware working with people's money. You have to get it right the first time round.

Certain ATM's has got certain function that others don't have. This also needs to be kept in mind. All the ATM for standard bank was replaced with Windows XP machines when they deployed the new software. There was one or two Win 2000 machines left, but they should've been replaced by now. Can't remember bout the CE machines, but there was a couple of them also.

Like I say, its not a POS app that you can just publish and in an hour or two its deployed country wide.
Click to expand...

Its not thick clients any more, its obese clients ;)
 
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