Press Releases

September 02, 2002

ABBY NATIONAL SELECTS LEVEL FOUR IN PREPERATION FOR EMV

Level Four assists Abbey National in developing and testing its network of cash machines to ensure the smooth transition to chip card technology

London, 2 September 2002 - Level Four Software, a leading provider of ATM test and development software today announced that Abbey National has deployed its EMV FastTrack tool to assist the migration process of its UK network of ATM machines to become EMV-compliant.

Abbey National is among a handful of UK banks that has worked on a pilot scheme with NCR to certify specifications for ATMs to accept and process smart cards. In conjunction with other testing software provided by Level Four, Abbey National can now automatically test high volumes of EMV chip card transactions quickly and efficiently by simulating its existing ATM environment, thus assuring a smooth rollout in their network.

Abbey National has over 3000 ATM machines in the UK and required a fast and effective way of testing these major upgrades to its entire ATM network with the imminent arrival of EMV smart cards. The bank deployed EMV FastTrack, a set of sophisticated test tools that enable the creation of EMV compatible ATM downloads and full end-to-end transaction testing directly from the chip card, through the ATM and up to the host system.

Using Level Four software, Abbey National staff can view ATM downloads exactly as they would appear on a real ATM and design, configure and test new ATM content from any desktop PC on the network. This allows the bank to fully automate the ATM testing process so that staff no longer have to manually test transactions on real ATMs, which is both costly and time consuming.

Conveniently, Level Four's software is not hard coded or fixed to a certain standard or protocol, so it can easily be updated to meet changing specifications, which has proved invaluable as specifications have changed over time, resulting in only minor modifications to reflect each change.

Andy Sampson, Manager of ATM Systems, Abbey National comments: "Level Four has helped us to understand the complexity of EMV compliance and the potential impact this could have on our business if we are not fully prepared. One of our primary goals is to ensure that we do not inconvenience our customers during the transition. We are confident that by working with Level Four we can deliver improved functionality at the ATM, and provide a reliable service that our customers can count on."

Martin Macmillan, CEO, Level Four comments, "Abbey National is the first UK bank to aggressively adopt our software for EMV compliance, which is a great step for our business. We have empowered Abbey National to bring ATM application development in-house, reducing its timescales and costs and ensuring that its customers are not compromised. We are currently in discussion with other European banks that face the same issues and require assistance in upgrading and testing their ATM networks effectively."

Level Four's primary software technology is the ATM Channel Development Suite - a comprehensive toolkit that allows financial institutions to develop, test and rapidly deploy new content and applications within their ATM delivery channels. The ATM Channel Development Suite also enables financial institutions to offer relevant, personalised and interactive functionality to customers through their existing ATM networks.



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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