ANZ's next technology push on ATMs, smart devices

In a bid to stamp out card skimming and counterfeit fraud, which costs Australia around $25 million a year according to the ANZ, the bank yesterday unveiled plans to launch Tap and PIN ATM, access starting in 2015.

For the last two years ANZ has been quietly upgrading its fleet of 2,700 ATMs; seven out of ten are now ready to offer Tap and PIN access which the bank is claiming as a world first.

Peter Tilton, head of ATMs and international banking for the ANZ, said that the cost of the initiative was all wound up in the $1.5 billion "Banking on Australia" modernisation programme that the bank unveiled two years ago. He said that by the end of 2015 just about the entire ANZ ATM fleet will be able to offer Tap and PIN access which will greatly reduce the opportunity for fraudulent card skimming.

The bank also foreshadowed allowing customers armed with near field communications enabled smartphones or tablets and ANZ mobile banking apps to use those devices to withdraw cash from an ATM.

After extensive field trials the bank is also poised to launch a digital wallet for NFC enabled Android smartphones and a card reading device that will turn an iOS or Android smartphone or tablet with the ANZ FastPay app into an EMV compliant Eftpos terminal.

Unlike many other similar devices which connect wirelessly to smartphones ANZ's card reader, developed in association with thumbzup.com will need to be plugged into the audio jack port of the device.

A spokeswoman said that the bank was still to finalise the cost of the device which will be made available in the first half of 2015