Your neighborhood ATM could soon boast several value additions to ease the banking chores. Some of these features have been launched on a trial basis, while others are used abroad and could soon find their way to India. Here are those features:

Instant Cheque Deposit

The cheque truncation solution, currently in place in most leading banks in the NCR, cuts short the time required to process a cheque. When this facility is shifted to ATMs, you can have the cheque scanned and the amount will be credited ‘instantly’ to your account and you will also get a copy of the cheque for your records. Wow, how cool is that?  Faster than NEFT / RTGS …!

It would be interesting to know as to how the banks will deal with cases wherein the drawer does not have funds in his account? What if the drawer has put a ’stop payment’ on this cheque? The plain vanilla ATM machine costs Rs. 8.4 lakhs but these new ATMs would cost around Rs. 12.6 lakhs per machine. Hmm, so it might be a case where we could see at least a few leading private banks getting these machines to the public first.

Nonetheless, this cheque scanning solution would really be a fantastic option available to bank’s customers, especially when currently a cheque takes 3 days to clear and a credit received in the account.

Instant Cash Deposit

Depositing cash in an ATM is nothing new — you put the money in an envelope, fill in the amount and feed it to the machine. The only problem is that the deposit is credited the next working day because the bank has to manually count the amount deposited. However, many banks have now installed machines that verify the amount you feed in and instantly credit the amount to your account. Most banks hope to shift the technology to ATMs soon.

Palm Vein Authentication for Secure Transactions

With identity theft and debit card skimming on the rise (see here how they do it), banks are considering biometric authentication as a secure solution. As finger print readers have limitations like not being able to respond accurately if the user has a cut or an abrasion on the finger, Japan (read ‘Fujitsu’) has taken the lead in introducing palm vein authentication. This technology uses the patterns of the blood vessel in the hand as an identifying factor. A user holds his palm a few centimeters above the scanner and it reads the unique vein pattern under the skin. As it does not scan the surface of the skin, the pattern is not easily defaced by dirt, cuts or abrasions, and it is very hard to read surreptitiously or steal it. This will also help do away with PINs; the system will compare the reading of the user’s hand taken by the scanner to an image stored on the card.

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