Press Releases

March 26, 2008

BANK AL BILAD ENHANCES CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE AT THE ATM WITH LEVEL FOUR

Level Four captures 90% market share for ATM testing software in Saudi Arabia

Dubai, 26 March 2008 – Level Four, a leading supplier of open standards-based ATM software, today announced that Bank Al Bilad, a fast-growing Islamic bank in Saudi Arabia, has implemented its ATM Developer solution to provide innovative functionality and services for customers at ATMs such as bunch note acceptance. With the solution, the bank becomes the eighth Level Four Saudi banking customer to benefit from cost savings, improved productivity and faster time to market of ATM services.

The main challenge Bank Al Bilad faced in rolling out new functionality and services to customers at its cash machines was the manual testing of ATM applications prior to deployment. The time and cost intensive process delayed the bank’s projects for bringing ATM services to market and also had an impact on the number of projects Al Bilad could handle at any one time. As one of the fastest growing banks in Saudi Arabia, Al Bilad aims to lead the field in providing many innovative and quality assured services at their ATMs, which requires a solution to help automate testing and develop new screen content and functionality on its cash machines.

To meet its testing challenges, Bank Al Bilad selected Level Four’s ATM Developer. Using ATM Developer, Al Bilad can customise ATM screens, rapidly introduce new ATM functionality and undertake end-to-end testing of its ATM network. Level Four’s automated tools eliminate reliance on manual testing, which results in faster, more thorough and accurate testing processes such as fewer faults in the network and reduced downtime. ATM Developer has a highly visual and intuitive user interface, making it easy for Al Bilad’s staff to use, positively impacting productivity levels. The solution also ensures that Al Bilad’s ATM services comply with regulations such as EMV standard for smart chip cards and SPAN2 (the second generation of the Saudi Payments Network that involves the implementation of electronic banking services across the country).

In response to growing demand for automated cash deposit at ATMs, Bank Al Bilad introduced its bunch note acceptance service. The bank uses Level Four’s Bunch Note Acceptor module with ATM Developer for maximum quality assurance so that the customer experience is not compromised at the ATM.

Muhammad Dahroug, acting CIO, Bank Al Bilad, said: “We understand that the ability to react quickly to customer demands and to take advantage of technological evolution is a key competitive differentiator for banks, especially in Saudi Arabia where ATM services are getting more and more sophisticated. To ensure that we lead the field in our ATM service offering, we wanted to maximise our current investment in ATM technology. Level Four’s ATM Developer was a logical and easy choice for us because the solution is live at several leading banks in Saudi Arabia so we are confident that it adheres to local requirements such as SPAN2 compliance and support of the Arabic language on top of being a proven time and cost effective solution to meet our ATM development needs.”

Issa Keshek, managing director of Level Four, Middle East, said: “Adding Bank Al Bilad to our customer base in Saudi Arabia increases our market share of providing automated ATM testing to banks in the region to 95%. As the dominant ATM software provider in Saudi Arabia, we can assure Al Bilad’s IT team that they can speed up the development and deployment process to introduce new customer services across the bank’s ATM network. A result of quickly bringing to market new ATM service offerings is an enhanced brand perception to Al Bilad’s customers.”


-ENDS-

About Al Bilad
Bank Albilad is a Saudi joint stock company, established vide Royal Decree 48/M on 21/9/1425H (corresponding to 4 November 2004) with a corporate capital of 3,000,000,000 Saudi Riyals. The bank is looking forward to be among the leading national banks, preferred both by private and commercial customers when it comes to the selection of their banking partner, through it’s compliance with Sharia banking rules as it’s principal brand, and it’s commitment to serve society. The bank’s core values shall be based on customer focus, business values, operational excellence and organizational transformation to achieve the value growth strategy and advanced financial position both in the local and regional markets.



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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