ReliabilityA
Before
an ATM is placed in a public place, it typically has undergone extensive
testing with both test money and
the backend computer
systems that allow it to perform transactions. Banking customers also have come
to expect high reliability in their ATMs, which provides incentives to ATM
providers to minimize machine and network failures. Financial consequences of
incorrect machine operation also provide high degrees of incentive to minimize
malfunctions.
ATMs
and the supporting electronic financial networks are generally very reliable,
with industry benchmarks typically producing 98.25% customer availability for
ATMs and up to 99.999% availability for host systems. If ATMs do go
out of service, customers could be left without the ability to make
transactions until the beginning of their bank's next time of opening hours.
This
said, not all errors are to the detriment of customers; there have been cases
of machines giving out money without debiting the account, or giving out higher
value notes as a result of incorrect denomination of banknote being
loaded in the money cassettes. Errors that can occur may be mechanical (such
as card transport mechanisms; keypads; hard disk failures); software (such
as operating
system; device driver; application); communications;
or purely down to operator error.
To
aid in reliability, some ATMs print each transaction to a roll paper journal
that is stored inside the ATM, which allows both the users of the ATMs and the
related financial institutions to settle things based on the records in the
journal in case there is a dispute. In some cases, transactions are posted to
an electronic journal to remove the cost of supplying journal paper to the ATM
and for more convenient searching of data.
Improper money checking can cause the possibility of a customer receiving counterfeit banknotes from an ATM. While bank personnel are generally trained better at spotting and removing counterfeit cash, the resulting ATM money supplies used by banks provide no absolute guarantee for proper banknotes, as the Federal Criminal Police Office of Germany has confirmed that there are regularly incidents of false banknotes having been dispensed through bank ATMs. Some ATMs may be stocked and wholly owned by outside companies, which can further complicate this problem. Bill validation technology can be used by ATM providers to help ensure the authenticity of the cash before it is stocked in an ATM; ATMs that have cash recycling capabilities include this capability.