ATM Cash Withdrawals: RBS/NatWest Proposing Cardless Cash Withdrawals

• The Royal Bank of Scotland and NatWest now enable their customers to take out cash without using their payment card, through relying on their mobile devices. The “GetCash” option has been included in their Android apps (and should soon be made available in iOS and BlackBerry OS): it has been designed to enable cardless cash withdrawals for amounts up to 100 pounds.

• A six-digit code, generated on demand on the mobile phone, has to be entered at the ATM maximum three hours after having been created. The number of daily requests is unlimited: only the usual limitations set on the customer’s account apply.

• RBS and NatWest first designed it as an “emergency” solution and it has been used as such by nearly 60,000 customers this year, which explains why the option is now in process of being proposed to their 2.4 million customers with either the RBS or NatWest app on their phone. It typically applies to contexts including customers forgetting or losing their card, or having it stolen, or for occasional funds transfers.

Source: RBS’s press release

• This solution proposed by RBS and NatWest to English, Welsh and Scottish customers reminds us of a relatively close announcement by the manufacturer NCR, the solution of which slightly differs however as it is based on scanning a QR-code displayed on the ATM using a mobile phone. NCR’s could be tested by partner banks at the end of the year (see, “ATM Withdrawal: NCR Merges Mobile and ATM Channels”).

• These two solutions tend to illustrate a trend focusing on multichannel and the use of mobile media for promoting interactions with other tools, including self-self-service devices. For example, following the publication of a Green Paper by the British Government on the use of ATMs in charity contexts (December 2010), banking and manufacturing players (including RBS/NatWest and even LINK –see May 2011 Insight) have been working on large-scale implementation of charity giving at the ATM, again demonstrating the potential of these interfaces.