SecurCash, a cash transit company that has worked in the Dutch market for two years as a transporter of valuables for banks and retail companies, is testing and developing a system from CaptureTech in Holland that uses RFID to track the amount of cash in each ATM cassette or cartridge it places in ATMs. The system, called PoolTr@ce, ensures that banks—SecurCash’s customers—receive secure and documented cash deliveries without having to send personnel to an ATM location. SecurCash calls this service a “person-independent” money transfer.
Currently, bank personnel must meet a SecurCash driver to verify that a delivery has been made. “Logistically,” says Fred Rensenbrink, managing director of SecurCash, “it was a problem because we were always waiting for the bank employee to meet us at an unmanned ATM.”
PoolTr@ce exemplifies a growing trend among banks of no longer servicing ATMs from bank branches, says Sander de Ridder, founder of CaptureTech. Increasingly, he says, cash is handled off-site at cash centers.
CaptureTech’s RFID system works in tandem with track-and-trace software from TransTrack International, not only to help automate the process of filling banknote cassettes, but also to keep detailed records of when the liability for in-transit banknotes changes hands.
PoolTr@ce (so named because groups of ATM cassettes are called pools) is an extension of CaptureTech’s RFID-based application, SealTr@ck. With SealTr@ck, RFID-enabled sealed cash bags (sealbags) are deposited into safes wired with RFID readers (see Dutch Banks Follow the Money). When the bags are dropped, the reader in the safe notes each bag’s ID number and the time the liability for the bag has changed hands. Presently, this system is installed in more than 400 bank locations and more than 500 retail sites. The SealTr@ck project, launched in 2003, was created on behalf of Rabobank, a cooperative association of independent banks.
SecurCash has been testing PoolTr@ce on 100 cassettes at a location in Holland, though Rensenbrink declines to name the bank participating in the pilot. When a cassette must be filled for delivery to an ATM, a cash handler at the bank’s cash center enters the request into a computer controlling an automatic banknote-counting machine. The machine fills the cassette/cartridge with the specified banknotes, then an RFID interrogator encodes the two passive read-write tags on the cartridge. The first is an EPC Class 1 Gen 2 UHF tag, while the other is a 13.56 MHz tag that complies with the ISO 18000-3 standard. Two tags are needed because the cash center is currently equipped with a UHF RFID portal. At the end of the year, however, HF (13.56 MHz) readers will be installed inside ATMs to document the amount of incoming and outgoing cash. Each tag is encoded with a unique ID number and an encrypted number that reflects the amount of money in the cassette.
A driver receives delivery assignment, then takes possession of the assigned load of cartridges that has been placed on a trolley holding as many as 16 cartridges. The trolley and its cartridges pass through the RFID portal at the cash center, which reads the cartridges’ tags. That data is used to document the exact time the cash changed hands and calculate the total value of the driver’s load, which is needed for insurance purposes. “Our insurance only covers a certain amount of cash,” Rensenbrink explains. “We now know how much money is in each truck, so we don’t exceed that limit.”.
Upon arrival at the ATM to be filled, a driver follows a work order displayed on a handheld wireless reader. This instructs the driver to insert a particular cassette into the ATM. The driver uses the reader on the handheld to scan the cassette in the truck, confirming that it’s the correct one, then carries it to the ATM. After going through all the required security clearances and entering all the necessary passwords, the driver opens the ATM and exchanges its old cassette with the new one.
By year’s end, the company expects to have each ATM outfitted with a 13.56 MHz RFID interrogator to encode encrypted data onto an HF RFID tag attached to the outgoing cassette. That data will consist of the exact amount of cash still inside the outgoing cassette. Eventually, the reader will also interrogate the new cartridge’s tag to determine the amount of cash it is receiving, and if it’s in the right slot.
Although tagging the cassettes and installing an RFID portal at the cash center is relatively easy, equipping the ATMs with RFID is more problematic, de Ridder says, largely because it requires cooperation from a number of entities involved in the cash supply chain, as well as compliance with various regulations.
Back at the cash center, the driver stacks a trolley with empty or nearly empty cartridges, and leads them back through the portal reader. Once again, the tags are read and the total amount of cash calculated. The time of the reading is noted because of the change in liability.
The system will allow SecurCash to save time on pickups and deliveries, and to be more precise when telling its customers where cash cartridges are located and how much cash is in them. What’s more, neither the driver nor the attendant at the cash center will ever have to open another ATM cartridge to count the money within.