MasterCard’s ‘ATM Hunter’ application has been getting mixed reviews in Apple’s iTunes store, according to a recent article on American Banker. With Monday’s release of the Blackberry application, MasterCard officials are quickly to comment on “significant pick up in downloads.”

Not everything is as rosy as MasterCard claims though, as the iPhone application – which has been available for about a year – getting mixed reviews. Some users complain of the application not working properly outside of the U.S. where it appears to be outdated.

One reviewer, identified only as Scott-USA, said the iPhone app “is just OK for use in the U.S. and Canada, but for finding ATMs in other countries this app seems to be outdated and almost useless.”  Scott, who said he is a frequent Bangkok, Thailand, visitor, said he used ATM Hunter to locate machines near JW Marriott, Sheraton Grande and Four Seasons hotels. “The app came back with no ATMs found,” Scott writes.

This begs the question of financial institutions rushing to push out applications and not focusing on the maintenance and upkeep. An idea is only as good as its execution, and this story is a perfect example of a company focusing on convenience, but overlooking critical steps.

In hindsight, the ‘ATM Hunter’ is a great resource for MasterCard’s customers. The lack of continually testing the application after its release is disheartening, as a lack of functionality is a sure recipe for customer frustration. Hopefully MasterCard will continue to provide updates to the application.