Fort Wayne [Indiana[ Journal Gazette

Tuesday, December 24, 2002

Money talks for visually impaired

Bank One offers ATM headphones

By  Sherry Slater
The Journal Gazette

John Glisson doesn't let being blind  keep him homebound.

The Lexington, Ky., man walks or takes taxis to get where he's going. And
he pays his way by stopping for money at one of his bank's automated
teller machines equipped with voice prompts that talk him through the
necessary steps.

Chicago-based Bank One has installed more than 100 talking ATMs in 14
states, including 25 in Indiana, spokeswoman Nancy Norris said.

Two were recently installed in Fort Wayne. One is at One Summit Square,
the downtown Bank One headquarters, and the other is at 5675 St. Joe
Road.

Glisson and other vision-impaired customers can access their cash by
plugging in the set of black headphones they carry with them.

"It's awesome," he said. "It's total access. I no longer have to depend
on drivers or sighted assistants."

Jeff Krivacs, Bank One vice president and Fort Wayne banking center
manager, said headphones are available at no charge to people with vision
impairments.

"It's an outreach to a customer base we want to lend a hand to," he said.

Bank One staff is ready to recommend the technology to customers and
provide a brief orientation on using the machine that works with a
combination of Braille on the key pad and instructions over the headset.
But so far, the bank hasn't identified local customers who need the
service.

The talking ATMs have been a big hit in other markets, however, including
Lexington.

Until earlier this year, using an ATM for Glisson meant sharing his
confidential personal identification number with a taxi driver or anyone
nearby so he could access his cash. Those helpers took advantage of
Glisson more than once.

"You can ask them to punch in $50, and they put in $100, and you would
never know at the time," he said, adding that he once was fleeced of $20
from someone he'd considered a friend.

Talking ATMs are not unique, but Bank One might be the first to bring
them to the Fort Wayne market.

Both National City and Wells Fargo are in the process of installing
talking ATMs as they replace teller machines, their representatives say.
Wells Fargo claims it was the first financial institution to unveil the
technology in 1999.

Bank One is also piloting in Indianapolis an ATM that doesn't require
envelopes for deposits.

While about 15 percent of deposits are made into ATMs industrywide, some
customers avoid the practice because they don't like to take the time to
fill out deposit information on the envelopes and they don't like the
notion that the checks and cash they deposit could become lost in the
system without proof they ever existed.

The envelope-free ATMs scan the image of checks and cash as they are fed
into the machine and transmit the information over data lines, allowing
bank processing to begin immediately.

The customer receives a receipt that includes images of deposited checks
and a specific accounting of each bill deposited, providing a record of
the transaction that ATMs using envelopes can't provide.

The machines are being installed one market at a time, where they are
most likely to be used, spokeswoman Norris said.

"We'll see how it goes, but it looks promising," she said. "There's a lot
of ATMs out there that just dispense cash, because that's all people want
them to do."

Norris cited mall food courts as a place where people are unlikely to
want to make deposits.

© 2001 journalgazette and wire service sources. All Rights Reserved.
http://www.fortwayne.com


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