Goodbye to ATM cards and Welcome…
Agricultural Bank of China (ABC) introduces ATM facial recognition Technology in Shanghai. This was revealed in a tweet @CGTNOfficial. Shanghai is a global financial hub in the central coast of China and it is China’s biggest city.
The facial recognition revolution in financial technology for whatever reason it was invented, has advantages across cultures around the world. The newly invented Automatic Facial Recognition (cash) Machine was first developed in 2015 by Tsinghua University, a research University in Beijing in conjunction with Tzekwan, a Hangzhou-based company that specializes in financial security protection but was adopted recently by Agricultural Bank of China.
The urgent need to improve security in Banking has become imperative. The traditional Automatic Teller Machine (ATM) makes banking much easier through the use of pin codes. It helps to free the build-up of queues at banking halls that sometimes potentiate bankers cash reconciliation errors but has its disadvantage of insecurity due to its invasion of its technology by electronic criminals who inflict financial losses to banks and customers.
The shortcoming in the pin code technology has inspired the exploration in biometric technology which is advancing in fingerprinting, retina (eye) scanning and facial recognition in order to salvage the insecure situation at the ATM and other finance related operations.
The Facial Recognition Automatic Teller Machine (FRAuTeM) will guarantee greater security of use of cards at cashing money. Much as the new facial recognition technology would prevent some frauds; ailing persons, parents or spouses who would want to send their proxy to collect cash for them through their ATM cards duly released with PIN numbers will no longer be able to do so unless the account owner is physically transported to the ATM center or the Bank itself. Kidnapped persons or stolen ATM will not have access to the account unless of their physical presence.
Beside the tweet from @CGTNOfficial, Xinhuanet also revealed that the Agricultural Bank of China (ABC) has introduced ATM facial recognition Technology at its Automatic Teller Machines (ATM) in South west China’s Tibet Autonomous Region. Fourteen of the technology has been installed in the regional capital Lhasa and its vicinity while the remaining undisclosed numbers in the other localities.
According to the Bank (ABC), the Facial Recognition Automatic Teller Machine (FRAuTeM) uses Local language making them more convenient for use among herdsmen. Account holders don’t have to bring debit cards or bank books to cash points anymore, just their face. ABC is testing a further 100 new ATMs that will be in operation in February. Agricultural Bank of China is not the first bank to introduce the facial recognition technology in China, Merchants Bank of China started using the Technology in the southern metropolis of Scnchen since 2015 and have expanded the services to about One Thousands ATMs in One Hundred and Six cities of China, Xinhuanet added.
Facial recognition technology is not limited to ATMs use, but it has a transactional mode in the case of facial ATM but not in the conventional use. Imagine its conventional use as the ‘earthly police’ when it is deployed in the toilets of Beijing’s Temple of Heaven to deter toilet paper thefts by supposedly ‘heavenly persons’. It’s also used at supermarkets at bag deposit area and at roads intersections to catch traffic violators.