Hello Umesha and Asif, The talking ATM's are a long pending and forgotten promise made by many Indian Banks. Banks like the state Bank Of India made some random promise of installing around 7000 talking ATM's for the disabled. This was a big hog wash talk and covered by a lot of media including Business Standard and the locally popular Deccan Herald News Paper. It has also come to my attention that this news was shared with the Access India mailing list somewhere in 2010. Extracts of the email and news shared are below, they talk about getting these ATM'S running in a months time from which date I have no clue. The goon bank of India ICICI who's CEO boasts that their bank has already instaled its first Talking ATM in 2003, may be it is in his private farm house or his local bar. Because thats where he employs his collection department people! Since most of these talks took place at Mumbai the financial capital of India, request list members from Mumbai to share if there has been any developments of this sort. Without further adue the story below:
India's largest lender, State Bank of India (SBI) plans to introduce 7,000 voice enabled ATMs across the country for visually challenged customers beginning next month. "Out of our 18,500 ATMs, 7,000 will be made voice enabled for visually challenged people. We expect to launch these talking ATMs starting next month," SBI's General Manager (Alternate Channels) Amitabh Kumar said at a CII seminar in Mumbai on Thursday. These voice enabled ATMs, customised with headphones and braille key pads, will offer services like funds transfer and downloading of account statements, Kumar said. Presently, SBI is testing voice enabled ATMs with its partners NCR and Diebold and expects to make these operational in a month's time, he said. SBI plans to install these ATMs in metro, urban and semi urban towns across the country. "The country has 10.6 million visually challenged people and it is the duty of the banks to help these people to meet their banking needs," ICICI Bank's CEO and Managing Director, Chanda Kochhar, speaking at the seminar, said. ICICI Bank has installed its first talking ATM in 2003. Over the years, the bank has also ensured that the basic banking facilities can be used by physically handicapped people, Kochhar said. Search for old postings at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ To unsubscribe send a message to [email protected] with the subject unsubscribe. To change your subscription to digest mode or make any other changes, please visit the list home page at http://accessindia.org.in/mailman/listinfo/accessindia_accessindia.org.in
