LAS VEGAS - Bancafe Bank, Colombia's fifth largest bank, is incorporating fingerprint scanning across its entire ATM network, according to a news release from NCR Corp.(NYSE: NCR).

With biometric technology provided through NCR, Bancafe's ATMs will no longer require customers to use cards for transactions, the release added. Instead, a customer places a finger on a reader at the ATM, enters an ID number and accesses his or her cash. In order to implement finger scanning, the bank needed to create a register of customers' fingerprints. When customers use the ATM, their fingerprints are compared to the centrally stored images.

The ATMs still retain the card and PIN option, however, about 50 percent of Bancafe's customers have signed up for the new technology, the release noted. The bank expects that figure to grow as the biometric interface is rolled out across its entire 486-ATM network.

"We initially piloted the biometric scanners on 170 ATMs," said Nelson Sanchez, commercial director at Bancafe, in the release. "Once we were happy with the system in terms of reliability and security, we started rolling it out across the rest of the network and are now three quarters of the way through the process."

"Biometric-enabled ATMs have allowed us to develop new relationships with existing customers and to position Bancafe as innovative and forward looking," Sanchez added. "It is also allowing us to target completely new market segments and provide groups such as pensioners and coffee growers with an easier and safer way of handling their money."

Bancafe has worked with the Colombian Coffee Federation, the co-operative that buys and sells all the country's coffee, to install biometric ATMs in rural towns where it has offices in order to persuade coffee growers to open bank accounts.

Mark Grossi, NCR's chief technology officer, said in the release: "At NCR we have been tracking developments in the area of biometrics for a number of years. The technology has now matured to a stage where it is sufficiently robust and affordable to meet the needs of specific markets."