The world of automated banking is taking a new face
as it embraces solar automated machines. At the Chennai factory of startup
Vortex Engineering, technicians are building ATMs that can work far better in
rural areas compared with conventional cash machines. The CEO and director V
Vijay Babu said they have installed over 300 solar powered of such machines in
India.
According to him, traditional ATMs
require about 1,000 watt of power. ATMs are also air conditioned. For air
conditioning another 1,500 watt are consumed. In total an ATM needs about 1,800
units of power a month. But solar driven ATMs would consume less than 100 watt.
Solar ATMs can do without air conditioning. Therefore solar powered ATMs will
need 72 units per month. This will result in saving of 1,728 units per month.
If we talk in monetary terms, solar ATMs will save ($2639) every year.
Another important quality of Vortex
Gramateller is its built-in biometric capabilities. The literacy rate in rural
India is quite low. Assuming most of the customers will be illiterate then the
ATM has to function without PIN numbers. These machines will require the
fingerprint of the customers as authentication. Vijay explains, “With a predominantly
illiterate population in rural India, we decided to address the issue with a
simple fingerprint identification for ATMs.
Once registered with the bank, customers can
use either biometric authentication or PIN number approval for cash withdrawal.”
V Vijay Babu claims that Gramateller
will also be 20 per cent cheaper than other ATMs.
No comments:
Post a Comment