Both Bank of America and Wells Fargo are currently developing contactless ATM solutions that could include support for Apple Play, TechCrunch reports. Citing sources familiar with the teams on the projects, the report notes that engineers at both companies have been assigned to build in Apple Pay options.
Jonathan Velline, Wells Fargo’s head of ATMs, also implied that Apple Pay would be coming to its ATMs, noting that the company has been “working on the technology that allows us to hook to digital wallets [and] leveraging NFC on mobile phones to replace the card at the transaction at the ATM.” However, Velline noted that right now the company is only looking to support Android Pay for the initial launch, although he suggested that they’re looking at “lots of different mobile wallets” and when pressed, admitted it’s likely that Apple Pay is on the horizon.
A Bank Of America representative also told TechCrunch that the company is “developing a new careless ATM solution … to leverage NFC” at the ATMs, and the bank expects to roll out the capabilities in late February at select ATMs, with a broader rollout by mid-year — although the Bank Of America representative was less committal about whether Apple Pay would specifically be supported. Apple Pay support at ATMs would likely allow customers to replace the credit or debit card for ATM transactions such as withdrawing money, simply by tapping at an NFC point, although it’s unclear whether there would be limitations to using Apple Pay for this, or whether it would fully replace card-based transactions.
Apple Pay could conceivably reduce ATM fraud by thwarting the use of card skimmers by providing Touch ID-based authentication, as opposed to a simple four-digit PIN that most ATM cards use.
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