It's not easy installing and maintaining an ATM or ITM. It takes a large team to handle the installation, software configuration, security and many other factors. As a result, many financial institutions are outsourcing these tasks to other vendors who provide professional ATM services.

In today's episode of the Bank Customer Experience podcast, Jeshua Buchanan, director of fintech solutions at Cook Solutions Group and Wade Fieber, director of strategic verticals at Cook Solutions Group joined Bradley Cooper, editor of ATM Marketplace, to discuss what professional services entail for banks.

During the podcast, Fieber and Buchanan discussed how professional services can help with both initial and ongoing ATM services including:

• ITM deployment.
• Server migrations.
• Check-imaging solutions.
• Testing software and products.

Fieber and Buchanan also spoke on how Cook Solutions Group provides ongoing marketing support for ATMs through its Professional Services Team, such as crafting digital signage content to be used on the machines.

Check out the full conversation above.

ATM crimes aren't slowing down in intensity. If anything, they are increasing, and banks need to be able to contact law enforcement quickly and have them arrive on the scene fast enough to stop the crime.

However, traditional security systems can cause big problems for ATM and branch security, especially due to false positives.

In some jurisdictions, police departments are requiring video verification to prevent false positives, such as a faulty sensor triggering, an animal or some other issue.

In this episode of the Bank Customer Experience Podcast, Joey Parrillo, director of security solutions at Cook Solutions Group, and Michael Strange, director of technology services at Cook Solutions Group, discuss key benefits of video verification.

Strange pointed out in the podcast, which was moderated by Bradley Cooper, that false positives don't just waste time, they can also waste money.

He said many police departments will hit banks with a $500 fine for the first false positive, with increasing fines for each subsequent infraction such as $750 to $1,000. In addition, these departments will be far less likely to respond to alarms at banks that regularly have false positives.

He also said that many times these false positives are simply caused by employees who unknowingly trip the system. In addition, for smaller community banks or credit unions, they may not have a dedicated team to handle security events, which can cause delayed reactions.

During the podcast, Strange and Parillo share several ways video verification can solve the problem including:

• Having a dedicated team to analyze security footage 24/7.
• Saving money by preventing false positives.
• Using AI to identify common issues such as animals or faulty sensors.
• How CSG's PikoVERIFY solution works.

You can listen to the podcast in its entirety above.

The biggest evergreen issue in the ATM industry is of course security. Criminals are always ready with innovative methods to steal cash from ATMs faster than the industry can put up protective barriers.

This is true of both the ATM hardware and software. In today's episode of the Bank Customer Experience podcast, Bradley Cooper spoke with Kit Patterson, a senior software architecture and security expert at KAL ATM Software to get an overhead view of current theft trends and ways to combat them.

One new method that Patterson discussed was the relay attack. In this attack, one device is compromised is relays card data to another machine, which can be used to steal money from a victim.

"The basic story is they use two machines. They attack two machines in parallel. They wait until a victim puts a card into that victim ATM or ticket machine or anything where a card is being used. They take over that card and they relay information from that card to the cash out machine."

He said that while this attack is difficult to pull off, it can also be challenging to detect and would require monitoring for certain types of unusual activity. For example, the software could detect that the card reader itself would take longer to transmit data in a relay attack than in a normal transaction, which should put up a red flag.

Patterson also said that this relay attack is also taking place with mobile wallet fraud, where attackers are able to steal the victim's mobile wallet and relay that information to another actor who will get the cash from an ATM.

He emphasized that criminals are willing to use as many methods as possible as "they don't follow the rules."

To respond to these threats, Patterson pointed to the importance of holistic efforts and not just viewing security as "ticking boxes."

Check out the full interview above and hear Patteron's thoughts on if AI is ready to transform ATM security.