NOOR and Mobinil.. on the
ECB Road!
Shall Beach ATMs help spread credit
card culture in Egypt?
Source: Al-Mal Newspaper
Were you once in a dire need for cash
while you were on the beach, and the
nearest ATM was in a 15 minutes drive?
Forget it! This is history now, because
our beaches will soon be decorated
with ATMs.
After a full year
of research and development, and
a month of demos and trials, NOOR
Advanced Technologies and MobiNil
announced the development of a system
to connect ATMs using GPRS technology,
the generation 2.5 of mobile networks,
and NOOR-run MPLS technology so
that NOOR network connects to banks’
networks, and at one point, NOOR
and MobiNil networks connect so
that data can be transferred from
and to ATMs, which could be easily
placed on beaches or any remote
area.
Sources at NOOR says
that this connection shall be used,
most importantly, as a backup system
for the current ATMs legacy connection.
As a trial, Egyptian Arab Land Bank
connects an ATM in the Head Office
using MPLS/GPRS, restricting its
use to staff, and only for inquiry.
In an event held
last week, NOOR presented the new
system, as Basel Dalloul NOOR CEO
stressed that NOOR network integration
with MobiNil network is completely
done at the hands of Egyptian experts
utilizing American NCR advanced
ATM technologies. NOOR is currently
contacting five banks on this system,
and the service price model shall
be determined within two weeks,
according to sources at NOOR.
The project is the
second of a kind in Egypt, as Egyptian
Commercial Bank, in cooperation
with a UAE company, connected an
ATM through satellites early May.
According to international
card issuers, there are only 800
ATMs in Egypt, and more than 1.5
million cards. Unfortunately, there
are no accurate or official estimates
for the number of electronic card
holders in Egypt. However, different
banks increasingly put ATMs in shopping
malls and main squares, while implementing
ambitious plans to expand issuing
credit and debit cards. But the
question remains: Shall Beach ATMs
help in the success of bank plans?