Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!mailrus!accuvax.nwu.edu!nucsrl!telecom-request
From: phil@wubios.wustl.edu (J. Philip Miller)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: ATM at Retailers  (was: Voice Mail Passwords)
Message-ID: <12065@accuvax.nwu.edu>
Date: 12 Sep 90 11:00:59 GMT
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In article <12026@accuvax.nwu.edu> Dave Speed <dspeed@well.uucp>
writes:

>On a similar note, our local <Sacramento, CA> grocery chain has
>installed pseudo ATM's for banking from the checkout line. Perhaps I'm
>paranoid, but I don't see any advantage (to *me*) in giving the
>merchant my bank number and PIN. Am I being silly ?

Well, this gets a bit far from Telecom, but there are several potential
advantages to the consumer from this type of arrangement:

For certain types of checking accounts from some banks, this type of
transaction may be free, while writing a check is not.

Many retail stores (particularly grocery stores) require a special
"check cashing card" from that store to write a check.  Using your ATM
card to make the purchase reduces the number of cards you need (and in
many cases the number of PINs you need to recall).  This is even more
important if you are shopping outside of your normal area.

I don't really see that the security implications are much different
than giving a store your Visa card and they run it thru their card
reader.

Now to give it some Telecom relevance:

The proliferation of ATM terminals and retail stores using ATM type
cards seems to be particularly popular in urban areas, but seems to be
much less popular in small town America.  Now this may be because of
attitude differences, but I have assumed that much of it is also due
to the fact that connecting the terminal to necessary host equipment
is also considerably more expensive and thus the amount of traffic for
a particular location would need to be much higher for a rural
location than an urban one.  Can someone knowledgeable describe the
typical type of connections utilized by ATM equipment (both stand
alone and in conjunction with a point of sale terminal)?


     J. Philip Miller, Professor, Division of Biostatistics, Box 8067
	 Washington University Medical School, St. Louis MO 63110
	     phil@wubios.WUstl.edu - Internet  (314) 362-3617
uunet!wuarchive!wubios!phil - UUCP (314)362-2693(FAX)  C90562JM@WUVMD - bitnet