Major Dundee employer NCR Atleos is investing millions of pounds in its city site.
Dundee is a centre of excellence for developing ATM technology and has around 600 staff in the city.
The Fulton Road building, which was built for NCR in 2002, is receiving several major upgrades described as a “multi-million-pound” investment.
This includes new hot and cold chambers to test the performance of ATMs for various temperatures across the globe.
Other parts of the site are receiving cosmetic upgrades. This follows the opening of an “innovation lab” to demonstrate the latest ATM technology to banking customers last year.
NCR Atleos investment in Dundee
Dundee site leader Denise Leadingham said the split of NCR into two companies has been positive for Dundee.
In October 2023 NCR split into NCR Atleos to focus on ATMs and software for the financial industry and NCR Voyix, which provides self-service machines.
Denise said: “NCR was fragmented across multiple areas of focus. NCR Atleos means we can focus on our core business.
“That has meant we’re able to invest in the right areas and that’s going into supporting this site.
“What we’ve seen in the past 18 months is the executive leadership team’s view of Dundee as an absolute core strategic site.
“This major investment into upgrading our environmental chambers – which gives us the ability to cook or freeze ATMs to extreme temperatures – means we can test in Dundee for environments globally.
“This is in addition to other cosmetic upgrades for different teams around the building.”
New Dundee jobs monitoring 50,000 American ATMs
NCR in Dundee is best known for the manufacture of ATM machines in the 1980s and 90s when tens of thousands of machines were produced.
When manufacturing stopped in 2012, research and development work continued.
Since the acquisition of Cardtronics in 2022, NCR has added a focus on running ATM networks. It runs around a third of ATMs in the UK, including all of Santander’s machines.
Last year 20 jobs were created in Dundee for a new team working on the network of more than 50,000 ATMs in North America.
This team investigates any reconciliation issues.
Vice president product Joe Gallagher said: “We reconcile the network – count how much is there, how much has been deposited and dispensed.
“Occasionally, there is a dispute and we need to look into that and reconcile that.
“With billions of dollars involved it needs oversight and there’s a lot of compliance rules.
“Dundee was chosen based on our skills but also the time difference helps – a lot of this reconciliation work takes place during the night in the US.”
Rise in use of cash driven by young people
The use of cash is currently on an upwards trajectory in the UK. Recent research from Nationwide shows it has increased in the last three years in a row.
It has now almost recovered to pre-Covid levels after a major dip during the pandemic.
Contrary to the stereotype that cash is primarily used by the elderly, young people are driving the demand for cash.
Carol Hamilton, deputy site leader for Dundee, said: “With cost-of-living pressures continuing, a lot of people budget using cash.
“There’s a trend on TikTok called cash stuffing where people assign their budget to different envelopes.
“There’s a perception that it’s older people who use cash, but the reality is it’s a lot of young people.”
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