Newly designed ATM for rural areas
A low cost, energy efficient model of ATM as been designed to facilitate banking in rural areas.The ATM works on solar power and is equipped with several unconventional features like dispensing of soiled notes instead of fresh ones.
Vortex Engineering, a company focused on developing sustainable products for rural India , it has worked in collaboration with IIT Madras to develop a an ATM that is meant exclusively for rural areas. The ATM is powered by solar energy and consumes just 4% of the total energy that is required by a conventional ATM to function.
Challenges such as the high cost of setting up a new bank branch, low transaction volumes, and the inability of conventional ATMs to serve rural locations have hindered the proliferation of formal banking channels in rural India resulting in inefficient financial systems in these areas. This technology has the capability to serve Indian villages — indicating an opportunity for over half a million ATMs across the country.
Vortex adopted the bottom-up methodology for developing the ATM. Instead of trying to strip down a conventional ATM to make it cost less, Vortex decided to completely redesign key elements of the machine.
Vortex’s team replaced the former cash dispensing technology (CDM) with a technology called ‘Gravity Assisted Friction Pick (GARP)’. Under this approach, cash is stacked in the upper half of the ATM machine. Notes are picked up from the bottom of the stack and moved approximately 10 cm downwards for dispensing.
Redesigning the CDM helped Vortex to reduce power usage by 80 per cent. Its low power consumption allows it to be operated with solar energy instead of conventional power supply. This is just 4 per cent of the total energy that is required by a conventional ATM to function, and indicates a saving of 1,728 units per month. Also, the ATM can operate in spite of power fluctuations and failures, as it has an inbuilt battery which provides four hours of backup.
Vortex’s team also developed a technology called ‘Sheet Separation’, which means it is no longer essential for ATMs to use only fresh notes for dispensing cash. The ATM also allows biometric authentication of users’ identities.
This unique ATM will help reduce CO2 emissions by at least 18,500 kg per year. The design changes have reduced the cost of the new model by a fourth of the cost of a conventional ATM machine, helping save at least Rs.1,20,000 per year.
Vortex first deployed its machines to help the local administration pay the beneficiaries of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGA). People were delighted with the transparency and accessibility of the system. As a result, they stopped withdrawing all the money that was due to them, preferring to save it in their accounts. As the people began saving, the bank found that it had an unexpected surplus of deposits. This was reported on the website of the Union Ministry of Rural Development.
Therefore this product has a large potential to help the government to reach out to the rural areas where banking is a limited or even non existent exercise, at reasonably low costs and with general acceptability.
