How Geldmaat keeps banks’ cash flow alive in a dying cash market

Although demand is dwindling and banks subsequently find it a less profitable business, society still needs cash. For example, people who are visually impaired, lack access to banking, or live off regulated stipends may only be capable of making payments with cash. And money in a wallet isn’t vulnerable to electricity cuts caused by disasters, extreme weather, or war.

Geldmaat is a company whose mission is to keep cash available in the Netherlands, currently via ATMs. It is owned by the Netherlands’ three largest banks: ABN AMRO, ING, and Rabobank . Anyone with an ATM-compatible bank card in the country can withdraw money from one of Geldmaat’s bright yellow ATMs.

Once it was clear that ABN AMRO, ING, and Rabobank ATMs were being decommissioned and replaced by Geldmaat’s newly branded yellow ATMs, the underlying IT needed attention. Whereas the three banks’ shared ATM landscape used to be a combination of ABN AMRO, ING, and Rabobank applications, Geldmaat wanted a new IT landscape that would support its own new ATMs. Because Geldmaat operates in a highly regulated market, the new system had to be secure and compliant by design. What’s more, since the market for cash is rapidly declining, the solution had to have tremendous flexibility in terms of cost and a very short time to market.

While fulfilling the cash needs of customers in the Netherlands, Geldmaat’s own operation costs had to be kept to a minimum. Precisely because its raison d’être is fading in relevance, the company needed a comprehensive baseline solution that would stay affordable and flexible. Secure and sound, the solution also had to inspire digital trust in the banks that rely on Geldmaat.

Schuberg Philis helped Geldmaat create a single new mission-critical landscape to support its yellow ATMs, which have since completely replaced all ABN AMRO, ING, and Rabobank ATMs. To safeguard quality and minimize human error, we introduced automation insofar as possible. For example, a whole new data solution was built to facilitate Geldmaat’s reporting to the banks and its supervisory board. As a second step, we are working to migrate this landscape to the AWS public cloud. This is to ensure that even in a fast-moving world where money needs change quickly and unexpectedly, Geldmaat can still deliver its service safely, securely, and with 100% operational uptime guarantee. At the same time, the solution is flexible and keeps costs as low as possible. We have also since taken on the role of service integrator, providing tactical and strategic support to ensure Geldmaat upholds its demonstrable accountability and can meet all regulatory standards. This will enable the company to maintain control over its robust supply chain comprising many partners.

Since adoption of the old ATMs’ underlying applications and processes, we have worked on gaining complete control on behalf of Geldmaat. This lets the company rest easy, knowing business is running smoothly and knowing what the status of supply chain partners is. As Geldmaat’s IT partner, we have worked side by side with the company, successfully reducing primary business process incidents to an absolute minimum. Along with the service integration transition, a next step in our partnership is landscape flexibilization, modernization, and end-to-end insights provision. This way availability stays up and time to market for new innovations is short.