Press Releases

December 11, 2008

BRITONS FAVOUR CASH TO MANAGE BUDGETS THIS CHRISTMAS

London – 11 December 2008 – With the credit crunch tightening purse strings this festive season, Britons favour cash over credit cards to manage their budgets, according to new research from Level Four, the provider of open standards-based ATM software.

Consumers are set to hit the pavements in force on Friday 19 December, forecast to be the most frantic day for high street shopping this year. However, research shows that cash is still king with 43% of Britons saying they feel most in control of their budgets when relying on cash from ATMs, compared with 38% for debit cards and just 10% for credit cards.

Commenting on the survey results, Ian Kerr, CEO, Level Four, said: “UK consumers are very keen to make their budgets work in these tough times. The survey has shown that using cash, accessed through the ATM channel, is one way to focus attention on personal budget management.  Banks have recently suffered from some bad publicity and may need to re-build a level of trust and confidence with the general public.  Banks will be working hard to maintain the availability of the cash dispensing network during this Christmas season to show commitment to give customers easy access to resources that can help them spend responsibly.”

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Notes to editors

The survey results are based on responses from 1,012 UK consumers aged 18+. The survey was commissioned by Level Four (http://www.levelfour.com), the supplier of open standards-based ATM software, and was conducted in December 2008.



About Level Four
Level Four’s development and testing products have been built to address the needs of ATM deployers seeking to maximize their investment in the ATM channel.

BRIDGE:test is targeted at banks and ATM deployers who are running, or seeking to run, a modern ATM network based on the industry-wide CEN/XFS open standard.  BRIDGE:test provides an enterprise regression test platform to test CEN/XFS based applications in a controlled environment. Customers gain benefits of the breadth of testing and improved quality assurance as well as reduced time to market due to increased testing efficiencies.

ATM Developer is targeted at banks and ATM deployers who are running states & screens protocol controlled applications such as those based on NDC or 912. ATM Developer provide a graphical environment in which customers can maintain the configuration file from creation to validation.

Since 1995, Level Four has built an impressive global customer base of banks and payments processors including, Royal Bank of Scotland, Lloyds TSB, Bank of America, CIBC, VocaLink and Standard Bank of South Africa. Headquartered in Dunfermline, Scotland, Level Four has offices in Dubai and Charlotte, NC, USA. http://www.levelfour.com  

Level Four’s online ATM industry resource: www.atmindustryinfo.com 

For more information, please contact:
Nicola Koronka
Hotwire
+44 (0) 20 7608 4673
levelfour 'at' hotwirepr.com





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