The Catholic Syrian Bank installed its first biometric ATM in the Malappuram district of Kerala.
The ATM has been installed at Ozhur village in the district with an aim to expand the outreach of banking facilities to under-banked areas in a secure and cost-effective manner.
It has been developed by Vortex Engineering Private Ltd. in collaboration with IIT Madras.
In addition to the normal functions of conventional ATMs, features such as weather information, commodity price and stock prices can be integrated into the Vortex Gramateller ATM with the help of an additional interface to the switch.
It has a built-in UPS and battery back-up of four hours and works without air-conditioning in temperatures ranging from zero degree to 50 degree Celsius.
It also has optional solar operation that can be deployed in locations of acute power shortages.
The bank will give normal ATM cards to the account holders, which can be used on biometric mode at the Vortex ATM and also on PIN mode at other ATMs.
“This would provide better flexibility to the customers and also act as a standby in case the biometric ATM becomes dysfunctional due to some reason,” said Jiz Kottukappally, Assistant General Manager of the bank.
He said that the bank is planning to install 50 biometric ATMs at various centres in the current financial year.
For providing banking services in the village, the bank has appointed Organisation for Women Empowerment and Rural Development as business correspondent, who will educate the residents to open accounts and transact banking business.