ATM maker Diebold is showing off two new concepts at this week’s Money 20/20 conference in Las Vegas. The offerings are the products of the company’s Responsive Banking concept, which itself made its debut at last year’s Money 20/20.
One of the new prototypes, called the Janus concept, is a two-sided ATM that can serve two customers at once. Perhaps more importantly, it doesn’t feature a card reader, relying instead on QR codes or NFC technology for customer identification. The other concept, called Irving, is an ATM with neither a PIN pad, nor a card reader, nor a screen; instead, all transactions take place via the user’s smartphone. In addition to NFC and QR code technology, this system uses iris scanning are used to identify the customer, and a mobile app provides the interface.
In a press release, Diebold EVP Frank Natoli suggested that while money is increasingly going digital, “cash will continue to have a role in consumer transactions,” and that this is “where Diebold comes into play” with its smartphone-compatible ATMs bridging the gap between digital, mobile technology and physical cash.
As important as it is to accommodate the rise of mobile devices in the banking ecosystem, the devices are also notable for eschewing physical banking cards as means of authentication. The Irving concept in particular, with its use of iris scanning for customer authentication, is a further investigation on Diebold’s part into the potential of biometric technology in this area; last year, the company launched a line of ATMs that used finger vein authentication. The use of biometric authentication is already standard for mPayments, and as that market rises in popularity, it makes sense that companies dealing in traditional cash would start to adopt the same mechanisms for user convenience and security.
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