Blog: When Should You Consider a Dual Tower?

When I talk to people outside our industry about ATMs, they often have a very one-sided view of the requirements financial institutions have. It should give out cash, right? Well, technically, yes, but there is a lot more to it, which is not obvious to the everyday user. What financial institutions require of their ATMs today has become increasingly complex.

In the early 2000s, for example, the need for exceptionally high-capacity devices and close to always-on availability led to the installation of dual towers. Thanks to the inclusion of two cash engines in one device, the note capacity was much higher than used to be possible with single towers at the time, and the possibility of falling back on the second tower should one be out of service allowed consumers to continue using the device despite one engine having issues.

While single tower capacity – especially that of our DN Series^® equipped with our fourth-generation cash recycling engine RM4V – has developed to rival even that of early dual towers, there are still some instances where a dual tower is a better fit to fulfill all requirements – which have become more complex than just needing a higher capacity.

In addition to the mentioned capacity and availability, some FIs now also want the ability to add functionality to make the ATM a replacement for the bank branch or the option to extend transactions at the ATM to include new use cases to create new revenue channels. These requirements are what drive the development of new ATMs. Again, dual tower devices are well suited to fulfill these challenges.


A higher-capacity device
By utilizing modern cash engines, which, as mentioned, already have a higher capacity than legacy ones, the combined capacity in a dual tower reaches a new level of capacity.

Improving availability thanks to IoT connectivity
Two engines continue to work as a fallback option, but aside from that, today’s engines are equipped with sensor technology. The data these collect can be used to track the health of the device and alert technicians faster and with richer information – increasing availability even more.

More functionality in one device
While a dual-tower device is generally bigger than a single tower, it fulfills the role of two single-tower ATMs side-by-side. With any ATM installation, we always have to consider the service footprint in addition to the size of the actual device, so a dual tower might actually save space. Especially when you consider that the larger device offers space for additional components that are needed to enable advanced transactions at the ATM. These could include additional identification methods like passport or national ID scanners, a digital sign pad, additional printers and video teller functionality.

Extending transactions at the ATM to increase revenue
Also, consider that thanks to the two engines, a dual tower has space for more cassettes, which allows the dispensing and depositing of more denominations of your currency or even foreign currency dispense and foreign exchange. Depending on where the device is installed, this could be a great use case to increase the revenue at the self-service channel. 

All in all, dual towers can be an excellent option for use in cash-heavy markets, especially those that want to make full use of the ATM as a branch in a box that enables more advanced transactions than ever before.

The DN Series Dual Tower DN Series 500 and 550 are built to fulfill all requirements FIs might have of their dual tower with market leading capacity and availability that has been proven again and again. The inclusion of additional components allows for advanced transactions like Know-Your-Customer, account opening, remote assistance and many more, while the combination of our RM4V and 6th generation cash dispenser CMD-V6A allow the dispense of up to 13 denominations – in one or more currencies.

If you are curious to find out more, visit DieboldNixdorf.com/DNSeries or contact your account representative.