Westpac hits the half-way mark in national ATM refresh

Westpac refreshes 450 ATMs and adds 115 new machines

Westpac Australia has flagged that it is half way through a two-year program to refresh its entire Australian automated teller machine (ATM) network.

A spokesperson for the bank said more than 450 ATMs had been replaced or refreshed and 115 new machines added to the network in 2009.

“This year we will replace another 470 ATMs and further expand the network by over 50 ATMs,” the spokesperson said. “The program is on track and we expect that by October 2010 the entire ATM fleet will be refreshed.”

The bank is working with a range of suppliers including NCR and Wincor for the project.

According to the spokesperson, the expansion and refresh program is aimed at improving customer experience and adding services and functionality to its ATMs which supported its business priorities.

“Last year we introduced functionality to support our strategy to be more local in our approach which was used to support a campaign about bringing back the Bank Manager,” the spokesperson said. “This included tailored information on local Bank Managers on ATM screens alongside the ability for a customer to request and print contact information for the local Bank Manager via the ATM. We are looking to implement additional features and functionality in 2010.”

The news follows the announcement earlier in the week that Westpac had signed NCR in a multi-million dollar deal to replace 80 per cent of the bank’s New Zealand ATM network.

Under the deal, NCR will replace more than 400 devices with next generation NCR SelfServ ATMs by June 2010.

Earlier this month Westpac announced growth in the number of registered Internet banking users, increasing from 21 per cent of all customers in 2007 to 31 per cent in 2009, with 38 per cent of customers signing on to receive e-statements in 2009.

In November last year, the bank's CEO, Gail Kelly, hinted that the bank was likely to choose not to renew its decade-long outsourcing relationship with IBM, due to expire this year, in line with a trend to move away from decade long all-of-IT approaches to sourcing.