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Cash Technologies, Inc. is one software developer that isn't prepared to bet the farm on advanced functionality at the ATM.

Inspired by the skyrocketing popularity of POS-based transactions, Los Angeles-based Cash Tech created a POS version of the ATM-X software it piloted on customized Diebold 1062ix machines in Las Vegas Rent-Way stores earlier this year.

While ATMs hold great promise, Cash Tech's technology could roll out more quickly on POS terminals, said Bruce Korman, the company's chairman and CEO.

POS terminals have the edge in sheer numbers -- with 2,350,000 of them deployed in 1998 compared to just 227,000 ATMs, according to Bank Network News. POS hardware is also considerably cheaper. "You're looking at a couple thousand dollars compared to $30,000 (for the customized ATM)," Korman said.

And, he added, the learning curve for performing advanced function transactions is greater at an ATM, without a clerk or attendant on hand to walk a customer through the process.

Banco Popular, a $23.2 billion financial institution based in Puerto Rico with U.S. branches in California, Florida, New York, New Jersey, Illinois and Texas, plans to pilot Cash Tech's new POS-X software at several check-cashing outlets in southern California.

Banco Popular is more interested in reducing risk than in completely automating the check-cashing process, Korman said.

"When you have a $9 or $10-an-hour cashier making credit decisions, it's tough to train them to not cash the wrong checks and always cash the right ones," he explained.. "Because we're providing essentially a 'business in a box,' cashiers can operate with no more training than the right buttons to push."

After being identified through an iris identification system, a customer is prompted to insert a check into a countertop scanner. The check's image is sent to Cash Tech's data processing center, where it is either approved or denied. The message is then sent back to the cashier.

Like the ATMs in Las Vegas, the POS terminals will be driven by Cash Tech's EMMA (E-commerce Message Management Architecture) transaction processing platform. The open architecture platform does not discriminate between devices.

"On the back end, our EMMA system doesn't know or care whether it's POS or ATM, " Korman said.

A key difference between EMMA and other platforms, Korman said, is that the intelligence is found at the host rather than at the terminal. "If you look at the Web-enabled strategies of the manufacturers, they've done their best to give their machines Web capability. Unfortunately, you can't do from the terminal what can only be done correctly from the host."

EMMA is designed to facilitate communication between bank networks -- including ATM networks, POS/credit card networks and the Automated Clearing House (ACH) network -- and non-bank networks, including the Internet.

Because all of the major ATM manufacturers either have or are developing PC-based models, and the entry of unconventional players like E*Trade is creating new interest in Internet-based transactions, Korman isn't ready to give up on ATMs.

For an Internet-based company like E*Trade, which earlier this year purchased the ATM contracts of leading ISO Card Capture Services, EMMA could route transactions to a traditional processor like ACS or to E*Trade's own online brokerage or banking sites.

The Rent-Way pilot in Las Vegas, which featured three high-end Diebold terminals using ATM-X software to cash checks, was a success in terms of networking, settlement, performance of the equipment and customer and staff reaction, Korman said. Unfortunately, all three sites had "the right demographic, but very low foot traffic."

While Cash Tech has worked exclusively with Diebold so far, Korman said EMMA is "completely hardware independent." Eventually Korman hopes to license EMMA to manufacturers, retailers and others.

He recruited Ken Paull, a veteran of both the ATM and POS industries, as Cash Tech's new senior vice president of sales and marketing. Most recently, Paull held the same position at Triton Systems, the leading supplier of ATMs to the retail market.

Paull is convinced that EMMA can help forge the path to advanced functionality. "I believe it can help a lot of the legacy equipment out there do more than what it can do today," he said.