‘CardFreeCash’ coming to ATMs

You’re out of town and realize you don’t have your debit card, and need cash now.

With new technology from Fiserv Inc. that’s expected to hit the market next year, you’d still have access to an ATM.

Here’s how:

You call your bank or credit union, which uses its security checks to confirm your identity. You’re given an 11-digit code by the financial institution, which then transfers you to a system that provides a personal identification number, or PIN.

When you get to the automated teller machine, instead of inserting a card, you touch a button on the screen and enter the 11-digit number, then your PIN.

“And now you have access to your account, just as if you had your regular plastic,” said David Keenan, senior vice president of network solutions for Fiserv, which is based in suburban Milwaukee and provides technology for the financial services industry.

Fiserv’s new CardFree Cash technology has been successfully tested at a large Florida credit union and is expected to become more widely available in 2016.

It’s another step in the effort by financial institutions to provide convenience as they encourage customers to use ATMs for routine transactions.

However, it’s also likely another step toward the eventual fade of card usage at ATMs, industry experts say.

With a recent rash of “skimming” incidents in southeast Wisconsin illustrating how easily bold thieves can hijack personal account information at ATMs that use cards with magnetic stripes, the arrival of cardless ATMs would likely be welcomed by many.

But, even with advances like Fiserv’s, no one is saying cards will disappear in the near term.

“There are a lot of people who wish cards would go away entirely because of stolen credit cards and skimming devices and that kind of stuff. But habits are a hard thing to change,” said bank technology expert Bob Meara, senior analyst with Celent LLC.

Keenan also said the disappearance of debit cards is not on the short-term horizon.

“I don’t see this as something that is a full-on replacement,” Keenan said of CardFree Cash. “There’s just no way. You use your card for so many things, including point of sale. But I think it’s a very valuable way to augment the card.”

More imminent in the financial card world is growing numbers of banks and credit unions issuing cards that contain chips rather than magnetic stripes, making it harder for thieves to steal information and create bogus clone cards.

However, looking farther down the road, smartphones – rather than plastic cards of any type – might end up being the way most consumers gain access to ATMs.

“I think we’re headed toward using the mobile phone a lot more often,” said Avivah Litan, a cybersecurity expert with the research and advisory firm Gartner.

This story was originally published September 30, 2015 at 10:00 AM with the headline "‘CardFreeCash’ coming to ATMs."