BPS SA has become Europe’s first financial institution to deploy a biometric ATM that enables customers to use their index fingers instead of cards and four-digit PINs to withdraw funds, the cooperative bank based in Warsaw, Poland, announced May 11.
The ATM scans fingers’ blood vessels and compares the information against data stored in the bank’s database.
Tokyo-based Hitachi Corp. developed the scanning technology for the machine, made by Wincor Nixdorf AG of Paderborn, Germany. Wincor Nixdorf officials could not be reached for comment.
The bank has installed a biometric ATM in Warsaw, and it plans deploy three to four additional machines throughout the city. By yearend, BPS plans to install 200 additional biometric ATMs throughout Poland, according to news reports citing Krzystof Jagielski, BPS vice president.
The biometric ATMs will prevent card skimming or theft of card information, Jagielski said in a statement. BPS SA is an association of 350 cooperative banks.
Fraud losses have dropped throughout Europe in part because of ATM compliance with the EMV smart card antifraud standard, according to the European ATM Security Team Ltd., a Glasgow, Scotland-based organization that monitors fraud in 23 countries within the Single Euro Payments Area (
Although ATMs that use biometrics to identify cardholders are common in Japan and in some South American countries, they are making their first European beachhead in Poland, according to Retail Banking Research, a London-based strategic marketing firm. Some financial institutions in rural India also are rolling out biometric ATMs.
‘We are not aware of any other biometric ATMs in Europe, although we believe some banks are looking into the option,” Sarah Jones, a Retail Banking Research associate, wrote in an e-mail message to PaymentsSource. Retail Banking Research plans to conduct a study beginning later this year about the future of biometric ATMs, Jones says.
