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Every year, it seems that the ingenuity, persistence, and damage that criminals can bring to their trade continue to break new ground. Unfortunately, 2019 will likely be no different. With threats evolving and criminals taking advantage of new tools, features, and techniques embedded within ATMs, financial institutions will have their work cut out for them. The good news is, however, that the same tried-and-true types of defenses that you can employ against them work just as well as they ever have as long as they are used and tuned correctly.

Ever since the number of branches in the United States reached its peak in 2009 at about 93,000, estimates have pointed toward banks shutting their doors on more than 100 branches a month. While such a trend could be viewed as alarming for financial institutions and their traditional form of business, the move has actually been highlighted by a rise in the role that ATMs are playing in meeting customer needs and in driving branch transformation.

With all of the buzz around the deadline to move to Windows 10 by January 14, 2020, in the news and in the headquarters of financial services companies, it makes sense why some could be considering alternatives to their current operating systems.

The concept of digital transformation seems pretty nebulous in a world of dollars and cents, but its effects on banking operations are very real. The primary goal of digital transformation is to enable customers to feel comfortable using technology and digital tools to interact with their banks and manage their accounts, including the use of mobile tools and self-service ATMs. In fact, according to a 2017 Fujitsu global survey, 89 percent of business leaders have major digital transformation projects underway.

Your ATMs are an extension of your brand and one of the key ways your customers interact with your financial services. So when it comes to who services and maintains your fleet of ATMs, it is understandable to be picky about who can get under their hood. Even more, your service provider can also be a partner that can offer consulting services, install regular patches and updates, lend logistical support, and help enable new features for your customers.

Believe it or not, January 2020 is just around the corner. And if you operate some of the estimated 3.5 million ATMs running on Windows 7, that date is a big deal. While at first blush, the migration seems straightforward, there are a number of considerations that need to be addressed to help make the transition of your fleet a successful one.

Consumers are expecting everything to become more high-tech: mobile payments, fingerprint identification, and bluetooth streaming. And what all of these features have in common is the ability to make customers’ experiences more simple, secure, and personalized.

These technological innovations are beginning to make their way into the ATM market, too, teeing up improvements for not only the customer’s experience, but also introducing some advantages to banks.

This article looks at four ATM trends that we may be seeing more of in 2019—and beyond.

The world of ATMs is undergoing huge changes, especially with mobile payment options and other cardless technologies making headway. These consumer products, as well as the popularity of credit and debit cards, could help explain the thinking that the end is near for cash—but the statistics tell a different story. In other words, while some may see the glass as half empty, other signs are pointing toward a continued bright future for cash and the ATMs that supply it to consumers.

The ATMs that bank customers interact with have undergone dramatic changes over the last decade, and so has the industry of service providers that manage these physical extensions of a bank’s brand. New technology and manufacturing techniques are giving banks additional options for the servicing of their automated cash equipment, with independent service providers stepping in to provide comprehensive and proactive service that can alleviate the constraints of working only with original equipment manufacturers (OEMs).