To reach the rural masses, banks are going all out in providing a user-friendly banking experience. To boost micro financing initiatives, biometric solutions with ATMs will be a great opportunities for banks in recent future. Establishing the identity of a rural depositor through biometrics makes it possible for illiterate or barely literate folks to become part of the banking user community. In recent years the importance of biometrics has grown tremendously with an increasing demand of security in accordance of unique identification of individuals. Its use for identification in applications other than policing is on the rise. In view of the rapidly increasing applications, the scope of biometrics is also increasing, be it identification via face, voice, retina or iris. Fingerprinting, however, has the advantage of being a familiar concept worldwide.
In the retail payments arena, developments in biometric technology have made their presence felt in the pervasiveness of self service devices including Automated Teller Machines (ATMs) and Point of Service (POS) machines. Elsewhere in the world, efforts are on enabling payments through kiosks based on fingerprints (non-card based). ATM enhancements with biometric support envisaged by vendors eliminate the need for PIN entry, and authenticate customer transactions by thumb-impressions. A simplified menu on ATMs coupled with possible audio guidance in local language enable easy use for rural masses. So far bank ATMs are dependent on PIN verification. The fingerprint authentication method is non-PIN based, and this requires enhancements to the standard Switch environment.
With the development of biometric solutions for the ATMs there is no need to remember PIN numbers. Software vendors are coming up with finger print solutions for the rural masses. where users finger-print data would be scanned into a special PC with a finger-print scanner and the scanned fingerprint is then stored in an encrypted form in a central server. When a customer inserts (or swipes) his card in a biometric enabled ATM, he is prompted to set his finger in the fingerprint scanner. The transaction along with customer’s biometric information is passed on to the switch. The switch verifies the fingerprint with the server, and if successful, requests the banking application to authorize the transaction.” Based on the result, the Switch instructs the ATM to complete the transaction. ITC’s solution meets this requirement, by performing requisite message translations as well as confirming authorization.
BENEFITS OF BIOMETRIC SUPPORTED ATMS
With ATMs supported by biometric solutions, banks having a presence across the country are leveraging on this technology. The ATMs are networked and connected to a centralised computer (Switch), which controls the ATMs. The use of biometrics identification is possible at an ATM. The information can be stored at a bank branch or Network Provider. ATMs are so prevalent and you have so many people using ATMs that it becomes easy to use biometrics as a replacement for an ATM PIN. The typical ATM has two input devices (a card reader and keypad) and four output devices (display screen, cash dispenser, receipt printer, and speaker). Invisible to the client is a communications mechanism that links the ATM directly to an ATM host network. The ATM functions much like a PC, it comes with an operating system (usually OS/2) and application software for the user interface and communications.
While most ATMs use magnetic strip cards and personal identification numbers (PINs) to identify account holders, other systems may use smart cards with fingerprint validation. The ATM forwards information read from the client’s card and the client’s request to a host processor, which routes the request to the concerned financial institution. If the cardholder is requesting cash, the host processor signals for ITC from the customer’s bank account to the host processor’s account. Once the funds have been transferred, the ATM receives an approval code authorising it to dispense cash. This communication, verification, and authorisation can be delivered in several ways. Leased line, dial-up or wireless data links may be used to connect to a host system, depending on the cost and reliability of the infrastructure. The host systems can reside at a client’s institution or be part of an EFT network. The EFT network supports the fingerprint authentication. Point-of-sale services that use biometric solutions are also possible.
