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Wells Fargo: All ATMs Will Take Phone Codes, Not Just Cards (go.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the sign-of-the-times dept.

Given the prevalence of smartphones nowadays, Wells Fargo has announced plans to upgrade all 13,000 of its ATMs next week to allow customers to access their money using their cellphones instead of traditional bank cards. Wells Fargo would be the first to upgrade all of its ATMs with the feature across the United States. ABC News reports: To access their money, customers would get unique eight-digit codes from their Wells Fargo smartphone app, and enter the code into the ATM along with their PIN number. The machines will still accept debit cards as well. One limitation of the one-time code, though, is that it won't work on the secure doors that many branches have for non-business hours that require a customer to swipe an ATM or debit card to gain entry. Wells Fargo said those secure doors are found at a small percentage of branches, mostly in major metropolitan areas like New York City or Chicago. Wells said it plans to roll out another upgrade to its ATMs later this year, which will allow customers to access the ATMs by holding their smartphones up to a reader on the machine, instead of entering the eight-digit code. It would be similar to using Apple Pay or Samsung Pay, the bank said.

5 of 71 comments (clear)

  1. As someone that's been waiting over 5 years for... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    an ATM card, this is just crap. They can't get working ATM cards to their customers, like myself that has had an account for just over forty years, so why add technology and complexity before fixing their basic problems?

  2. Re: As someone that's been waiting over 5 years f by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    To be fair, the purchase wasn't finalized until Oct 15, 2011 so we've only been waiting on working ATM cards for a little over five years.

  3. Re:Card Skimmers? by TWX · · Score: 4, Informative

    If they wanted to solve the card-skimmer problem then they'd install circuitry to detect a skimmer placed on the cardslot and they'd show a picture on the ATM screen of what the cardslot should look like. They could even go so far as to make a device that slips out through the cardslot and damages or destroys card skimmers, deploying it between however many uses of the ATM, or they could use a system that retracts the card reader and cardslot into the housing of the machine between uses and allows for automatic inspection and confiscation of skimmer mechanisms.

    There are plenty of ways to solve the skimmer problem without resorting to using cell phones and pushing the security responsibility to the accountholder, but they all require effort and money.

    --
    Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
  4. They're not the first. by tmshort · · Score: 4, Informative

    Bank of America already offers this

    http://promo.bankofamerica.com...

  5. Surprised it took So long by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    In Poland it is available since 2015.

    NÃw probably over 90% of ATMs and 75% of account owners can use the feature.

    It is called BLIK.

    You can albo use ot at majority of stores , largest online Exchange as wellness as at Aliexpress