TeNet develops low-cost ATMs for rural India

R Jai Krishna





CHENNAI: Low-cost ATM machines developed by the Telecommunications Network
(TeNet) Group of IIT, Chennai are being tested in the metropolis at two places.








The kiosk—ATM, named Grammteller, which was developed over a period of 18
months, by IIT's Computer Science and Electrical Engineering Departments, in

association with Vortex India, is under pilot trial by ICICI bank. The ATMs are

aimed at the rural market.






Grammteller, unlike other ATMs is meant to be a cash dispenser, which plugs into
a kiosk PC, which acts as a tunnel between the dispenser and the bank server

thus bypassing use of the 'switch' used by ATMs. The 'financial transaction

switch' is an enterprise server that connects the ATM to information from

various sources, which then dispenses with the switch, thus reducing the cost of

the machine to about Rs. 50, 000. The server is encrypted and runs on a

proprietary format developed at IIT-M.






Unlike the PIN numbers log-in access facility, Grammteller is equipped with
biometric sensor so that once the customer's fingerprints are registered, PINs

need not be used.






Aimed at the rural market, the low-cost ATM makes it more user-friendly for
people in rural India who are more into 'finger impression' mindset for taking

cash. The thumb-impressions are being registered at the TeNet Lab at IIT-M and

are stored and authenticated by ICICI servers in Mumbai.






Grammteller is now being tested among a Closed User Group (CUG) and the pilot
trials is expected to continue for net couple of weeks.






Talking to Cyber Media News, Dr Ashok Jhunjhunwala, professor, IIT-M and head of
TeNet group said that a second ATM machine which mimics a standard ATM is also

been developed, and equipped with biometric sensor thus making it deployable in

any market.






“The hardware and software used in the low-cost ATM was developed in-house,
whereas the mechanism was designed by Kannan, who runs Vortex, and an alumnus of

IIT-M,” Dr Jhunjhunwala said.






“The machine has a single denomination cash cassette, which can dispense 30
notes at a time,” he informed.






Dr Jhunjhunwala said that the machine drastically cuts licensing costs up to Rs
1 lakh, as the fingerprint algorithm has been developed by IIT-M.






He said that the new machines would be ready in few weeks time, after which
testing protocol with the switch would take place for another couple of months

before pilot tests begin.






The dispenser of the second ATM is improvement in tune with the speed and
optimization of the embedded environment, and follows the financial transactions

data exchange format, ISO-8583, which is a universal standard for ATM machines.








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