IMGCAP(1)]
Indian banks are planning to deploy ATMs that can read checks and dispense cash, according to press reports and sources. A report in local newspaper Economic Times notes that banks are looking to deploy machines that make real-time check verification and clearance possible inside special ATMs. "Yes, we are looking at these machines," an official at Mumbai-based State Bank of India tells CardLine Global. "The central bank is in favor (of their deployment), and so we should see the first such ATMs by the end of the financial year" in March. The official says the ATMs will help "get the check-using community to finally move toward an ATM and then maybe even gradually move to using cards." According to the Economic Times report, ATM makers NCR Corp. and Diebold Inc. are trying to persuade banks to deploy such ATMs. Neither company offered immediate comment to CardLine Global. "We are in favor of such ATMs, and banks do have approval to use the [check-reading] technology for inter- and intra-bank purposes," a spokesperson for the Reserve Bank of India, the country's central bank, tells CardLine Global.
