No cards. No PIN numbers. To withdraw cash, all you need is a smartphone armed with an automated teller machine app, and a nearby ATM running certain software from NCR.
Though the application itself isn't impressive, the crossover it allows between the mobile and ATM channels is. Bankers have long been eager for a seamless transition from one channel to the other.
"It's kind of logical," says Nicole Sturgill, a research director in the retail banking and cards practice at CEB TowerGroup, who received a briefing on the technology. "That integration between mobile and ATM, we are trying to get at it. We know it's there. We know that there is magic there. We just have to figure out what it is."
Sturgill likens the development to mobile remote deposit capture: from an industry perspective, it is nothing special. But users love it. They see it as a way to save time.
Technically, here's how it works: A consumer makes a cash withdrawal request using the NCR software on their Android or iPhone device. They walk up to a nearby ATM within the bank's network and take a picture of a 2D barcode on that ATM. The 2D barcode contains the location of the ATM and transmits that information to the bank. The bank completes the transaction and spits out the cash at that ATM.
The ATM does not need to be an NCR machine, it only needs to be running NCR's Mobile Cash Withdrawal software, a spokesman says.
NCR says the software saves several seconds at the ATM, potentially moving lines along faster.
One or two banks are expected to be testing Mobile Cash Withdrawal by the end of the year, says Steve Nogalo, the vice president and general manager, payments, mobility and converged channels.
If everything goes according to plan, he says, the software could be ready for prime time by the beginning of 2013.
The company has talked to its customers about the technology for the past year, during development. The software, which can be loaded on to any ATM regardless of its brand, is a by-product of NCR's Mobiqa acquisition. NCR purchased the Scottish technology company in 2010.
Originally, the deal was meant to bolster NCR's travel kiosks, but the company's payments unit had other plans, says Nogalo. He began managing NCR's payments group right around the time that NCR began developing its Mobile Cash Withdrawal software. Previously, he was in charge of NCR's software development.
"We have really been on a very significant transformational journey over the last six years, but it has accelerated in the last three," says Nogalo. NCR has "shifted from being a hardware provider to really being a software and services company."
