Wincor Nixdorf, Now World’s No. 2 in ATMs, Targets U.S.

Wincor Nixdorf International has hired a career banker from JP Morgan Chase to help it grow its U.S. operations towards the market dominance it enjoys in Europe, the head of the Paderborn, Germany, firm told BS&T on a visit here.

Patrick Wright, the new president and chief executive of Wincor Nixdorf in America, will lend some of the "customer intimacy" required for Wincor Nixdorf in the U.S. market, the company's chief executive Eckard Heidloff says.

Wincor Nixdorf, recently recognized as now the world's second-biggest ATM supplier, has, Mr. Heidloff says, "a very strong European busines," with sustantial market share. "In the America's our share is 8 percent. We're ready to get much more market share."

Mr. Wright, the new president and chief executive of Wincor Nixdorf in America, was 17 years at Chase, most recently as senior vice president and head of retail operations. His predecessor, Brad Waugh, who has left the firm, did not come from a banking background, Mr. Heidloff said.

"He was more from the IT industry and building fast operations," Mr. Heidloff said, agreeing that the company's challenge in the U.S. now is less about product functionality—a given—and more about marketing.

"Customer intimacy is very important ... investment into people is very important," Mr Heidloff said.

Wincor Nixdorf was named in June as the world's second-largest supplier of ATMs, according to an annual survey by London-based Retail Banking Research Ltd (RBR). It displaced Diebold Inc. of Canton, Oh, from second place, according to RBR data, from 1,000 ATM corporate customers in 2007. NCR Corp. of Dayton, Oh, remains number one.