Microsoft and the National Australia Bank (NAB) have created an ATM that features no slot for plastic cards, but uses instead the facial recognition technology for cash lodging and withdrawal.

Futurebanking.ru reports that since no card is involved, there is no risk of card theft or skimming.

Microsoft and NAB bet on face recognition for identification instead of fingerprint scanning as the former method has a higher level of security. The ATM machine scans the client’s face, identifies it and compares it with the photo of the bank account holder, previously uploaded to the cloud service.

No personal data remains in the ATM’s memory, as the biometric information for image comparison is stored on Microsoft cloud services. It prevents fraudsters from getting access to the user photo base by hacking the ATM, Microsoft said.

The bank clients who no longer want to use a card will have to pay a visit to the bank to make a photo, which the bank staffer will add to their account and PIN code.

Microsoft works on the technical part of the project and NAV deals with financial decisions.

There is just one cardless ATM yet, which took two months to develop. The project is still in early stages, so neither Microsoft nor NAB can name a concrete date for the launch of mass replacement of regular ATMs with the cardless.

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