Several banks only have less than nine months to upgrade their ATMs from the OS Windows XP.
A computer is a machine or device that can be programmed to perform a set of arithmetic or logical operations. Since automated teller machines (ATM) can perform such operations, it is therefore considered a computer, which also operates with an operating system like a traditional computer.
"It's like any other Windows-based PC," said John Campbell, manager of the automated delivery systems department at Virginia Credit Union, in an interview with Information Week.
Virginia Credit Union operates 16 branches that include state employees as their major customer segment. It has over $2 billion in assets.
ATMs used to have OS/2 before IBM decided to discontinue it on December 2006.
Since then, majority of the ATMs were upgraded to Microsoft's Windows XP. Though it was quite complicated at that time, it became well-liked because it offered a better deal, more potential applications, and more functionality. Now, about 75 percent of all the ATMs in the U.S. are running on XP.
Windows XP is the second most popular version of Windows due to its better hardware performance, less compatibility issues, and pocket-friendly cost.
However, Microsoft announced as early as April 2013 that it will no longer support the most-used OS starting April 8, 2014.
Though several banks and credit unions have already started upgrading to Windows 7, many will surely stick to using XP.
If those institutions decide to use an unsupported OS, it would make them non-compliant to the payment card industry (PCI) requirements. Once declared non-compliant in an audit, fines could go as high as tens of thousands per months, said Stewart.
Marc DeCastro, a research director at IDC Financial Insights, said in an e-mail that ATM upgrades get delayed as cash flow gets tight.
"Often times it is an easy budget-saver to defer an ATM upgrade if the ATM is in fact doing what it is supposed to be doing, which is giving out cash and taking deposits," he e-mailed Information Week. "The problem is that there is not much money being made with ATM technology, so to pay for this the bank [or] credit union will need to look to cut somewhere else."
