These Bengaluru school students will let you withdraw money without using your ATM card

Five students of Oakridge International School, Bengaluru have developed a technology that helps you withdraw money by using your mobile phone
The students who have developed the technology
The students who have developed the technology

It is an extremely hot day and the queue outside the ATM is almost a kilometre long. But what can you do about it; you desperately need the cash. After several minutes (though it feels like hours) of shifting your weight from one leg to the other, fighting a tan and being grossed out by the sweat trickling down your back, you finally reach the ATM machine. And then you realise that you've forgotten your card. Don't laugh! It can happen when you have different purses! So, anyway, cursing your luck, you return home to retrieve your card and then head back to the never-ending queue.

I'm sure almost everyone has gone through this at least once in their life and hence, there's no need to elaborate on the inconvenience caused. But what if we tell you that you might not have to face this situation ever again? In fact, you might even end up spending less time in those dreaded queues. Like the idea? Well, then thank Rahul Tarak, Vikram Mishra, Baala Teja, Rithvik Mahindra and Gaurang Bharti, students from Oakridge International School, Bengaluru.

This team has come up with a mobile application that employs the use of NFC (Near-Field Communication) to carry out ATM transactions, where the user just has to place their mobile phone on the ATM machine to withdraw cash. For phones that are not equipped with NFC, there is also a backup option of an OTP-based method. To help the students build this application, Visa has offered to mentor them in this project and will help them develop an industry-level solution.

With NFC, the user just has to input the details in the app (where the card is authenticated) and place their phone on the ATM machine's NFC reader. After the user is verified, the data is transferred and the money is withdrawn. In the other method, the app sends the user an OTP, which has to be entered in place of the pin

"We came up with the idea at a hackathon that we attended. When you forget your ATM card, you tend to go back home to get it. But we're hoping to eliminate that problem and make things easier," says Gaurang. And to get a global payments technology company like Visa on board isn't easy, we reckon. "This is our first dive into the financial world. Now, Visa is helping us with the security backing necessary for our app, which we are yet to release. We are looking forward to that," says Rahul.

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