National Australia Bank (NAB) and Microsoft have partnered to design a facial recognition proof of concept for Automatic Teller Machine (ATM) using artificial intelligence (AI) technology.
Image: NAB partners with Microsoft to develop facial recognition ATMs. Photo: Courtesy of National Australia Bank Limited.
NAB stated the new proof of concept will be developed using Azure Cognitive Services.
It is expected to eliminate the need for physical cards or devices to access cash from ATMs and will instead recognize the customer using facial recognition technology and a PIN.
The concept has been designed to test customer experience in using such technology. The ATM system which will use Azure Cognitive Services, will not store images, but only the biometric data and the data will be held securely on Microsoft’s cloud platform. The information will only be used for customer authentication and for no other purpose.
NAB chief technology and operations officer Patrick Wright said: “It just reinforced to me the need for banks to be simpler and faster for our customers; we want to deliver great connected customer experiences.
“Cloud technology allows us to take advantage of features and capabilities that are world-leading and enable us to deliver at pace for our customers.
“Working with companies like Microsoft allows us to develop concepts like this. It’s a look into what the future might hold for the way our customers access banking products and services.”
Customers who will participate in this experiment will not have any of their banking information connected to the system. The concept was developed by a small team of NAB’s in-house innovation lab, NAB Labs and technology division. NAB also reported that the data will be erased, once the experiment is completed.
Microsoft Australia managing director Steven Worrall said: “Cloud computing and artificial intelligence present the opportunity for a new generation of secure, streamlined financial services to be developed and rapidly deployed at scale. NAB’s innovation focus is concentrated on meeting the changing needs of the customer; this concept ATM that NAB and Microsoft are working on together provides an important glimpse into the future.
“We believe AI will profoundly impact financial services and the sorts of solutions that banks will be able to deliver in the future.”