Press Releases

April 15, 2002

LEVEL FOUR LAUNCHES NEW DEVELOPMENT TOOLS FOR THE ATM CHANNEL

Banks can now offer personalised and interactive functionality to customers without investing in costly upgrades to ATM networks

London, 15th April 2002 - Level Four Software, a leading provider of best-of-breed ATM test and development software today launched the ATM Channel Development Suite - a comprehensive toolkit which allows financial institutions to develop, test and rapidly deploy new content and applications within their ATM delivery channels. The ATM Channel Development Suite enables financial institutions to offer relevant, personalised and interactive functionality to customers through existing ATM networks.

Banks are under enormous pressure to provide relevant and meaningful applications on their ATMs and turn these 'cost-centres' into a profitable customer service channel. To support this business need, Level Four has created a unique toolkit that creates, prototypes, tests, manages and deploys both exiting ATM downloads and new ATM applications, non-disruptively. The ATM Channel Development Suite enables ATM services to be changed quickly using a simple graphical interface. Testing is automated by a set of pre-defined simulations, reducing human error and increasing certainty before deployment.

Through deploying Level Four's software banks can offer customers dynamic and personalised content at the ATM - such as mobile phone top-up or access to supermarket loyalty card schemes - giving customers more convenient services and enhancing their relationship with the bank. The software also helps banks to upgrade their ATM networks to support EMV smart cards, increasing security and reducing the potential for fraud.

Martin Macmillan, Level Four's CEO, comments: "Banks are really waking up to the opportunities available to them through leveraging their existing ATM infrastructure. A major catalyst is the introduction of the multi application chip card, which will drastically enhance the range of customer options at the ATM. The fact that customers are becoming more accepting of new functionality at ATMs means that banks need to keep pace with customer expectations. Banks can do this quickly, today, without spending on new ATMs. Upgrading ATM functionality has previously been difficult because there were no adequate tools to do this and extensive manual testing was required. With our technology a bank can automatically test and easily deploy new ATM applications and content from a central location."

The ATM Channel Development Suite provides a workstation-based development environment for applications that reside both at the ATM and the network provider's payments switch. Applications can be introduced to existing ATM software architectures, through the creation of new ATM downloads and server-based logic, and migrated painlessly to more sophisticated environments as they are deployed. By using graphical rules-based workflow, the software overcomes many of the complexity log-jams previously associated with the deployment of new functionality across ATM networks.

"Level Four's software empowers banks to develop new ATM applications in-house, drastically reducing timescales and costs. Traditionally, banks have worked with the ATM manufacturers to do this, but as an independent player we are now putting power back into the bank's hands," comments Macmillan. "Furthermore, because our software is not hard coded, or fixed to a certain standard or protocol, it is able to move with the times as the ATM networks change - protecting our customers' investment. This is particularly important as banks are getting ready for EMV compliance."

About Level Four

Level Four’s integrated BRIDGE suite of open ATM software products have been developed to address the needs of ATM deployers seeking to maximise their investment in the ATM channel. BRIDGE is targeted at banks and ATM deployers who are running, or seeking to run, a modern ATM network based on the industry-wide CEN/XFS open standard. As a true holistic offering, BRIDGE recognises the needs of ATM deployers in the areas of installation, testing and monitoring as well as run-time ATM software.

Since 1995, Level Four has built an impressive global customer base of banks and payments processors including, Royal Bank of Scotland, Lloyds TSB, National Bank of Dubai, Rabobank, LINK and Standard Bank of South Africa. Headquartered in Dunfermline, Scotland, Level Four also has offices in Dubai and Charlotte NC.


For further information contact:

Martin Macmillan
Level Four Software Ltd
Tel: +44 (0) 1383 720 118

E-mail: martin@levelfour.com

Hotwire PR
Nicola Truman / Alexia Ward
+44 (0) 20 7608 2500
E-mail: levelfour@hotwirepr.com





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