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My first touch screen experience at an ATM

Just to remind you, the “ABIL” ATM was designed by IDEO for BBVA based on extensive customer research and developed and built under tender by NCR Corp. and Fujitsu.

April 30, 2011 by Flora Hamilton — European Manager, ATMIA

Following on from our very successful first Innovation Forum on Accessibility in Barcelona on April 12th, I took the opportunity to meet up with the innovation people at BBVA in Madrid and to see for myself their recently-launched customized ATM, “ABIL”. 

Just to remind you, the “ABIL” ATM was designed by IDEO for BBVA based on extensive customer research and developed and built under tender by NCR Corp. and Fujitsu.  

Upon first viewing I thought they had created an ATM out of a very large I-PAD but then, despite not being a major “I-gadget” user, I realized that it was touch screen without the sliding mechanism that drives it.

I got to play with a BBVA customer card to withdraw cash, pay a bill, transfer funds and deposit cash.  I loved the fact that I got to choose the note denominations for the cash dispensed but my absolute favorite transaction was the deposit functionality - it gave us back some change!  Yes, some change!  We put in a 10 euro note and instructed a deposit of 8.50 euros to the customer account and ABIL duly provide 1.50 change in euro coins.  

And this all from one slot – this slot will dispense and receive bank notes, read bank books and has a special drawer for coins built within it.

We also played around with my UK bank card to experience the service from an international perspective and guess what – it offered me dynamic currency conversion. I had the option to charge my cash withdrawal in euros to my bank account in the UK in pounds sterling and with the full knowledge of the exact amount of the cross-border charge. This was another total first for me as I have never been told at an ATM in the euro zone before what the charge will be to my pound sterling bank account. 

It was a real treat to see this level of self-service offered through the ATM channel and in such a user-friendly and intuitive manner. And like many of my colleagues in the industry I look forward to the impact that “ABIL” by BBVA and “Punt Groc” by la Caixa will have on our industry as two very different customized-design ATMs coming out of Spain in the last five years.

For those of you who want to know more about “ABIL”, it is one of the key note presentations at our conference in London on June 6th and 7th. Please do get in touch if you want more details.


 

About Flora Hamilton

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