There was a time when there was just one option to pay for the purchases/bills made in malls or restaurant, And that was cash.
People had to carry a big fat wallet before stepping out of their house.
And then banks came up with an idea of Cashless banking with the help of plastic money, i.e. debit/credit cards.
It has shrunk our wallet.
We hardly carry cash anymore anywhere. Just take out your card and swipe it in POS. No worries of carrying cash,
or for that matter begging for change when you carrying an 1000 rupee note. Card made everybody’s life comfortable and relaxed. But few incidences made this card pain in neck. In case someone looses his/her wallet, then the only option was to look out for customer care number (lucky enough if its saved in your phonebook) else look out for an nearest respective bank ATM.
Stand in IPVR queue and after answering the IPVR which is possible only if you remember the card number (impossible in for most of us), you could complain for the lost card. But this was still fine in case you are carrying an Credit card, as you are given 48 hours to report loss of card.
Or in an second incident if someone steals away your debit card and decrpyts your PIN, you had just no option to save your hard earned money.
Sometime back we added another feather in our Banking technology, using our beloved cell-phone to do our major transactions like paying monthly bills, to booking your tickets. I wont say this has reduced the wallet weight, but certainly had made access a bank at any corner of world. That’s know remote banking or Banking on the fly.
Now imagine a life without this plastic money. The whole money transaction can be done only in your presence but without any card or cash.
Yes a world without Cash and Plastic money. This is called New Generation banking: The Finger Touch banking.
Your fingers impression is your access code in all ATM’s or in POS machines. Enter an ATM with touch of your thumb and then withdraw or deposit money with your Thumb or your eye retina as secure code to access the ATM machine. All you need is pockets in trouser to keep the cash. but even that can overcome if technology gets advanced to this stage:
Explaining the technology behind this: Its as simple as transferring the unique value from your credit card after entering the amount to the remote Mainframe machine, which stores all your information, but in this case instead of transferring the credit card unique number, we will transferring the encrypted values of your fingerprints to the remote server, which after cross-checking your values received from POS or ATM with the server will give you the go- ahead!!!! signal.
Banks can use the same secure technology in providing you credit and debit cards. All Banks need to do is provide you an 4 digit number which will help customers to identify the bank name they are transacting with.
Assume you having dinner with your family in Frangipani. Once you done with your delicious pasta meal, you ask cheque. The waiter comes up with your cheque and a wireless POS. All you need to do is press your right hand fingers on the POS to pay the bill. (Make sure your wash hands before that).
Now as we are so addicted to western culture that, we are just not contended with 1 credit card. So how will you transact with the card which has still not crossed its maximum limit. Banks have provided you an 4 digits unique id. to identify the card you are banking with. For example 1000 refers to ICICI credit card, similarly 5000 may be for CITIBANK or 5555 for my favorite Barclays:).
These numbers can be stored in your phone or for making your life much easy, a list with these unique code can be provided to the shops/restaurants.
So now you can imagine a life without wallet, so no worries about whereabouts of your wallet while leaving your couch, as we only need to make sure we carry our fingers along with us.
Happy New Generation banking!!!
And Go Green too!!!
