No joke the UAE to get its first bilingual talking ATMs

Very shortly customers of Emirates NBD will be able to talk to a teller on their ATM when they have a problem with a transaction. This two-way video connection will be the latest innovation from a seven-year partnership with Avaya Networks.

Full details of the system and a mock-up will be showcased at the Gitex computer show in Dubai later this month. The bank hopes this is just a first step on the way to making its entire online and mobile banking systems interactive with two-way video.

Innovative bank

This is not an ATM service available yet in most advanced countries. Perhaps being smaller helps in the UAE as the network involved is substantial for the largest bank in the UAE but not on the scale of a larger nation.

Emirates NBD chief information officer Ali Sajwani explained that the first trial will involve a limited number of ATMs and customers but the intention is to provide this two-way video chat facility across the whole mobile and Internet banking platform.

So don’t be surprised if you visit the UAE and hear somebody saying ‘Hello, how are you?’ to their ATM. This is not stress or the first signs of madness, merely the next stage in the retail banking revolution.

There are issues to overcome like security and being overheard while chatting to the machine. It also remains to be seen what range of services will be on offer to the user and how useful this will prove to be.

Mobile banking

But you can see where this is going. Imagine being sat in a cafe in Kensington in August and making a mobile banking transaction with Emirates NBD and being able to communicate with the bank just as if you were in Dubai. Perhaps a payment to DEWA had not gone through and you wanted to ask somebody why.

It is all possible with this amazing technology from Avaya when combined with the much more powerful broadband network currently being installed in the Emirates. Doubtless the ATMs will have to be fluent in Arabic as well as English as with the influx of Arab Spring refugees this year the number of Arabic speakers in rising.

But being able to talk to an electronic bank is a major step forward and credit should go to Emirates NBD for getting there first.