It appears that the future is finally here, with news that an Australian bank has just has floated the idea of a cash point machine that uses retina-scanning and possibly electronic fingerprinting to beat their rivals in the advancing technology wars.
It is reported that by June 2012 it will introduce eight hundred of the new ATM's that will allow ''next generation'' deposit services, to include coins, notes and cheques to be credited to their customers' accounts with immediate effect.
The ANZ bank itself is said to be ploughing roughly one and a half billion dollars into new technology. The chiefs of the bank are keen to determine what type of biometric identification customers will feel comfortable using. 67% of a customer survey have polled that ID verification using retina-scanning devices would be acceptable.
Up to now, rival banks have been unveiling a string of various mobile-phone applications and devices geared towards mobile consumers in recent years in a broad move to meet the rising demands for a far more convenient banking option. Analysts however believe that a cashless banking future is many years off. An analyst for Intelligent Business Research Services has said that while the Australian banking sector is very quick to embrace technology, we as consumers are pretty fixed in our ways and habits, which makes the wholesale adoption of such new technology a lot more difficult.
While real-time payments inter-bank would be a positive push to the future it might not be all that long before we are able to literally "keep an eye" on our balances and bills!