Last week I wrote an article for Mail&Guardian on how EasyPay is fighting back after banks prevented their customers from using their credit cards to do transactions via EasyPay (see Easy Pay fights back). This was after a crime syndicate used stolen credit card details to buy pre-paid electricity and airtime via the EasyPay site.

The article questioned whether the banks were unfairly targeting EasyPay and this week Absa announces its ATM refurbishment which will include a Scan n Pay functionality. This functionality will allow Absa and non-Absa customers to scan bar-coded invoices from a number of utilities companies and other large corporates – and to instantly pay from an Absa account or by inserting cash into the device! This will be direct competition to EasyPay’s bill paying service available at retailers like PicknPay.

The roll out of new machines seems to follow the innovation by FNB which introduced automated banking tellers with a far wider range of transactions including real time deposits.

According to Absa the new ATM interfaces feature fresh designs and helpful animations, more intuitive screen navigation, faster transactions, anti-skimming security enhancements, video-based information messages and a reduced risk of ATMs going offline.

“Our range of innovations are expected to reduce the length of queues in branches, particularly at month end, thereby making access to a range of banking options more convenient for our customers,” says Christo Vrey, Managing Executive of Absa Digital Channels.

According to Absa over R200 billion is moved via their ATM network, through 500 million transactions.