ATMs of tomorrow will clear cheques

NCR, the leading ATM manufacturing company and a subsidiary of Ohio-based NCR Corporation, is all set to take the ATM experience to the next level. In what can be a confidence building measure for customers, the company is testing its Deposit Automation process on ATMs.

This means that a customer could deposit a cheque or cash at an ATM and receive receipts after real-time updating. NCR expects the process to be fully implemented in the next 2-3 years.

When deployed these machines will be able to read the currency notes and instantly provide a receipt, thereby assuring the customer that the amount has been deposited. In case of a cheque, an image of the deposited cheque will be given to the customer as a proof of clearance.

A well-known bank is already testing the "image-based clearing mechanism" that has been developed by NCR. This project is in a trial phase and is currently being tested among specific branches of the bank. These branches are using the mechanism for intra-bank cheque clearance.

The image based clearing will have special machines at the receiving point and the cheque processing centre. At the front end, there will be special machines and servers to scan both sides of the cheque. These images will be stored, sorted out and sent to a central archive.

The image exchange servers will transmit the image to the payee bank/branch and the account status will be updated (the cheque debited) real-time. NCR expects that this mechanism will enable cheques drawn on remote branches to be cleared within two days, as against 10-12 days.

Speaking to the Business-Standard, Deepak Chandnani, managing director, NCR Corporation India Pvt Ltd, said, "RBI is working towards image cheque truncation (being able to do without physical cheques) whereas some banks are already testing it internally. Since we need the RBI to go through the whole process, it will take nearly 2-3 years to bloom. We are yet to test the cheque clearance technology on ATMs."

NCR is already conducting roadshows in order to showcase ATMs as a Teller. Having recently launched the ATM-Asan, which is more suited for Indian conditions, the effort to move towards Deposit Automation is yet another step to ease the process of banking to customers.

NCR has a dominant share of the 13,000 installed ATMs in the country. As this is much lesser than the installed base in China (65,000 ATMs), UK (140,000 ATMs) and US (300,000 ATMs), there is tremendous scope for growth.