Daniel Eran Dilger
While select banks have already begun rolling out card-free ATMs for iPhone users with Apple Pay, a new partnership between FIS Cardless Cash and ATM network Payment Alliance International promises to bring similar security and card-free convenience to iPhone users via an app that authenticates via Touch ID.
Getting rid of payment cards at ATMs is intended to reduce the risk of card skimmers (devices that secretly read a user's card information when the user swipes or inserts it at an ATM) and "shoulder surfing," where a user is observed as they enter their PIN.
FIS Cardless Cash is an app that uses Touch ID for authentication of the user on their iPhone, and then subsequently communicates with the bank to generate a QR Code the ATM can recognize as unique to the user's transaction. After completing the transaction, the ATM can issue a digital receipt to the user's phone.
The company calls its product an "interoperable platform for banks, ATM operators and networks to provide consumers with access to their money anywhere they want it."
FIS first launched its service last year and currently works with 34 banks. It says it has "successfully processed millions of dollars in cardless ATM transactions since launch."
It's now partnering with PAI, the largest privately-held network of ATMs in the U.S., and payment network NYCE, to roll out its Cardless Cash service across a network of 70,000 ATMs.
in June, Bank of America began rolling out Apply Pay withdrawals at select ATMs in California, which allow users to approach and authenticate for cash the same way they'd make an Apple Pay purchase.
Apple is working to increase the number of merchants and apps that can accept Apple Pay transactions, and expand service to new countries and with new banking partners. It has not yet opened up Apple Pay's NFC to third party developers however, meaning that the only ATMs that could accept Apple Pay for authentication are banks that issue Apple Pay and own their own ATMs.
The FIS product is designed to offer an alternative app-based way to authenticate, so rather than using an Apple Pay transaction it simply authenticates the user via Touch ID. Rather than using NFC, it presents a barcode similar to the system used by payment systems and loyalty cards such as Apple Pay rival Walmart Pay or the now defunct MCX CurrentC.
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7 Comments
Meh...not feeling this. I think the way BoA is handling ATM transactions is much better. Simpler and just as secure as what's being offered here.
Can't say if be upset if the Apple Pay ATM access method rolls over and crushed this entrant.
No access to the NFC functionality for 3rd-parties. Good move, Apple. Good move, indeed.
Funny, just yesterday at the ATM I was thinking to myself how outdated and tedious the current process is.
The approach using Apple Pay is an excellent example of a customer-oriented TGR (Thing Gone Right) that surprises and delights the customer.
Optically-based QR-scan approaches, are an excellent example of greed-driven bank-oriented attempts to avoid an Apple Pay fee by foisting the Walmart Pay of authentication processes on customers, they are less convenient, less safe and definitely not customer oriented.
Although the FIS app looks to have a lot of goodness in it, in the aspect of ATM authentication, if they don't offer bank customers an Apple Pay based authentication option, then their app is sadly lacking the opportunity to provide a quick, safe, comfortable customer oriented experience.
The queue grows restless while the person at the front tries to remember his PIN number.
Twenty years later, the queue grows restless while the person at the front tries to line up her phone to get a good look at the QR code.
Not sure this is progress.