Headless ATMs are gaining ground quickly in the US and are projected to continue to gain ground over the next 18 months. These are ATMs that do not require a debit or credit card; instead the ATM communicates directly with banking customers' smart phones. Banking customers simply log on to their banking app, request the amount of cash they would like to receive, and walk up to the ATM and scan their phones to retrieve their cash.

With the popularity of both ATM use and ATM crime running rampant, banks anticipate that the new headless ATMs will cut down significantly the number of fraudulent transactions and ATM crimes. According to an article in pymnts.com, "U.S. consumers made 5.8 billion ATM withdrawals in 2012, totaling $687 billion, according to a study released last year by the Federal Reserve." Meanwhile, a separate article in pymnts.com reports that, "All in, $1.7 billion was lost to general-purpose debit, prepaid and ATM fraud totaled in 2014, according to the Federal Reserve." Most of this loss was related to bank cards, with criminals placing cameras or scanners in or near card readers and using the gleaned information to create false cards.

Most of the new ATMs do not even have screens or key pads. There will, however, be an identity recognition device present in the ATM, as explained in phys.org: "Customers need only verify their identity, which can be done with the device's fingerprint reader, or possibly with an iris scanner on the ATM."

So in the near future, when you prepare to extract cash from your local ATM, you will want to make sure you have your phone with you for a quicker and safer transaction.

Netclearance offers a complete suite of proximity devices like mBeaconPay and mBeaconAccess to easily enable headless transactions in ATMs.