Bangalore, Sept. 22 : Canara Bank has added another feather to its cap by taking technology beyond the periphery of the literate world.

The bank recently launched the country's first bio-metric Automated Teller Machines (ATM) at Devanahally near here which uses the fingerprint instead of PIN number.

The ATM was inaugurated by Reserve Bank of India (RBI), Deputy Governor Usha Thorat in the presence of Regional Director for Karnataka RBI, Devaki Muthukrishnan and Chairman and MD of Canara Bank, M B N Rao.

“The ATM enables the transaction by customer's finger print instead of PIN and guiding the customer through the process of transaction with the help of pre-recorded voice system in the regional language,” said Thorat.

The technology initiatives of the bank namely mobile biometric ATM with a handheld device to capture finger impressions, smart card with ATM facility and mobile ATMs with biometric facility are the first of its kind in the country.

Technology power has helped bank to take technology to the doorstep of the customer and also reduces transaction cost to the bank and ultimately benefits reaches people.

And biometric is very significant, it safeguards the identity of card user and the voice message is a big source of comfort.

Rao said that the ATMs have business potential and make the 'financial inclusion' policy more effective.

”Our Bank has launched total financial inclusion in 23 lead districts and in Karnataka, Davangere is declared under total financial inclusion. And the bank has extended its total financial inclusion campaign to 1639 villages across the country,” said Rao.

Around 6.5lakh accounts were accounted for by cansaral, a no-frills account in the last fiscal, he added.

The bank is also planning to deploy more number of biometric ATMs in rural and semi urban branches in the near future. (With inputs from ANI)