Automated banking system for dispensing money orders, wire transfer and bill payment

This is a Continuation Application of U.S. application Ser. No. 10/699,978, filed on Nov. 3, 2003, entitled “Automated Banking System For Dispensing Money Orders, Wire Transfer and Bill Payment,” which is a continuation of U.S. application Ser. No. 09/444,197, filed on Nov. 19, 1999, entitled “An Automated Banking System For Dispensing Money Orders, Wire Transfer and Bill Payment,” now abandoned, which is a continuation of U.S. application Ser. No. 08/866,140, filed on May 30, 1997, entitled “An Automated Banking System For Dispensing Money Orders, Wire Transfer and Bill Payment,” now U.S. Pat. No. 6,012,048, the disclosures of which are expressly incorporated by reference herein in their entireties.

This invention relates to automated banking systems and machines including those which employ or are an improvement over automatic teller machines (ATMS). ATMs are widely available and receive a considerable amount of usage, particularly on weekends, for dispensing cash. For instance, it is not unusual for an ATM to dispense $250,000 worth of cash in the course of a single weekend. The ATM user is provided with an ATM card as well as a personal identification number (PIN) or password, so that if the card is stolen or lost, the finder of the card will not be able to use it to withdraw funds using the ATM card because of the lack of the PIN number. Typically, the ATM user will use the card and PIN number at an ATM to withdraw cash from the user\'s checking account, savings account or as an advance from a credit card, or transferring money from a savings account to his checking account. In other instances, the ATM user will use the card and PIN number to access the ATM in order to ascertain the user\'s account balances. In a few instances, some ATMs have an incremental revenue opportunity from the capacity to dispense stamps as an alternative to cash for the user.

Owners of ATMs have found them to be relatively profitable. However, there is a need for increasing the profitability of the ATMs which are principally now used as cash withdrawal machines. Competing with the banks and with ATM machines are local currency exchanges which perform a number of banking type services for their “profiled customers.” Profiled customers are those customers who have signed a signature card or who otherwise have identity confirmation information entered into a network of a local currency exchange. These profiled customers are local to the area and are not part of a large area or nationwide network. Often, the currency exchange not only has the profiled customer\'s signature, but the currency exchange agent often recognizes the customer. Currency exchanges commonly cash a large volume of payroll checks for their customers. The average fee for such a transaction is 1.6% of the amount of the payroll check. This can yield quite substantial revenue when a high volume of payroll checks is being cashed. Currency exchanges compete with the ATM machines by cashing personal checks for their profiled customers. Most often, a currency exchange will not cash a personal check for a non-profiled customer of the exchanges. If the currency exchange assumes the risk and cashes such a check, however, the customer transaction charges are extremely high, e.g., $20.00 or 20% of the value of the check being cashed.

Another large volume transaction-type having the potential for large volume for a currency exchange is the issuance of money orders and cashing of money orders. On average, the customer charge for such transactions is about 1.85% of the value of the money order.

Other large revenue generators for currency exchanges are fees collected when customers pay bills for utilities, such as telephone, electric, gas, and water, as well as other bills, such as cable, television or credit card bills. Typically, there is a $0.60 per bill service charge to accept payment of a utility bill or credit card bill or the like in a currency exchange. The currency exchanges operate under contract with the local utilities and/or credit card companies to provide such a service.

While currency exchanges are relatively profitable, one significant expense cost of operation is due to employee theft of currency. Also, from time to time, employees make mistakes when cashing checks or money orders, or when issuing money orders. Another shortcoming of currency exchanges as opposed to ATM machines is that the exchanges are open only for limited hours, while the ATM machines are generally available for transaction processing 24 hours each day. In many instances, people prefer not to let others at a currency exchange or bank have any knowledge of their personal financial affairs and would prefer to use the ATM machines, rather than currency exchanges if the ATM machines provided some or all of the banking type services now provided by the currency exchanges.

Often currency exchanges are used by local residents who do not have a checking or savings account with a local bank, and who do not use the ATM machines or have an ATM card. Thus, there is an opportunity to acquire new customers for automatic banking machines if the machines will have many of the functions performed by a currency exchange or of a full service bank, such as cashing checks or money orders.

Wire transfer of funds is another banking function which is not generally available to the general public. Usually bank wire transfers are for very large amounts of money. Rather than going to a bank to wire transfer money, most individuals, as opposed to businesses, commonly wire money through other companies such as Western Union or through the American Express Company. Wire transfer costs for consumer-related transactions are relatively high. There is an average cost of between $13.00 to send a minimum of $200.00 by wire and about $200.00 to send $5,000.00 by wire. There are many times when people are traveling or when they have a child at college when it would be desirable to be able to transfer money by wire to their child\'s account so that the child has immediate access to the money. If such a wire transfer service were available for use in an automated banking machine, it would provide a relatively inexpensive method of wire transfer for individuals.

A new opportunity available to full service banks and to currency exchanges is participation in the United States Federal Government\'s Electronic Benefit Transfer Program (EBTP). The program will distribute smart cards for use by recipients of Social Security, Veteran\'s or welfare benefits. Payments for such benefits may total as much as one-half trillion dollars per year. Clients who have EBTP cards are already in the government\'s network. These smart cards are intended to replace the food stamps, among other things, whose use may lead to the clients being embarrassed. The currency exchanges and the full service banks will be receiving a transactional charge when writing an increase in balance onto the smart card. Also, the service provider will be charging the smart card user a fee for each transaction, for instance, when the smart card\'s balance is decreased as it is being used to pay for food, a utility bill, etc. This represents a large volume usage that could be available to appropriate electronic automated banking machines if they offered bill paying services and sale of items such as telephone cards, lottery tickets, and the like.

Owners of ATMs are beginning to take advantage of such incremental revenue opportunities, e.g., by selling stamps via the ATM machine. This allows the owner of the ATM to gain more revenue from it. For example, end user items such as theater tickets, lottery tickets or stamps can be sold from dispensers in an ATM machine. Because the purchase of end-user items is less susceptible to fraud, they do not require the additional security for transactions as cashing checks or money orders.

A number of security problems arise with the addition to ATMs of functions performed by full service banks and currency exchanges, such as cashing checks and money orders. The foremost problem is integrity of the document being exchanged for cash, in particular, verification of signatures on checks or money orders being cashed. Also, the ability to read various types of documents and to provide the user with a large number of payment methods requires a relatively sophisticated machine beyond that of current ATMs on the market and in widespread use by the general public. The problem with checks is not only the signature verification of hard-to-read handwriting, but also reading the amount, usually written in cursive, on a legal line of the check. In addition, the check has a second line which is the courtesy amount recognition line (“CAR”) which is written in numerals representing the value of the check. Most checks also identify the bank and the maker\'s account in magnetic ink.

Another consideration for transactions such as cashing checks, paying bills, or other like things from a remote banking machine is the need to record the transactions and to leave an audit trail for later manual review, if required, of the transactions.

A semi-automated system has been proposed to aid in the cashing of checks and which reduces the access of the teller to the money. This proposed system would require the user to operate the machine and negotiate the check while in the electronic presence of a teller, who being satisfied that the check should be cashed, then verifies the cashing opportunity and operates the machine to dispense automatically the funds to the machine user. Of course, such a machine requires the attendance and the presence of the teller, and therefore, is still not a fully automated system for cashing checks.

Among some of the mechanical problems that have been experienced with the remote ATM-type machines is that of providing change in coins. Already, over a single weekend, ATMs are being severely taxed often completely emptied of their contents, and they do not have changemakers. The addition of a coin changemaker adds considerable expense and maintenance problems to the machine to provide the exact coin change to the user who is cashing a check or performing some other function.

Another problem with providing a commercially practical automated banking machine is that of the time needed for the transactions. Preferably, the transactions should be relatively brief and simple so that a minimal number of operator actions, such as touch screen pushes or keystrokes, are required for each transaction. If a particular transaction takes more than a minute or two, the system would probably be too slow to adequately service a line of people waiting to use the machine at a busy time on a weekend. Also, if the machine offers a large number of transactions like those of a full service bank or a currency exchange, the machine should provide a wide range of funds delivery or payment options to the user so that the payment can be made by cash, credit card, smart card, or withdrawal from a checking or savings account.

There is a need for an automatic banking machine which includes an ATM-like machine that performs and allows a number of service options, such as for example the withdrawing of cash, the depositing of cash, the cashing of a check, the cashing of a money order, the buying of a money order, the transferring of funds by wire, paying a bill and purchasing of end user items.

In accordance with the present invention, there is provided an automated banking machine system, which performs the usual ATM functions but which additionally issues money orders for the user without the presence or the assistance of a teller. Additionally, the preferred and illustrated, automated banking machine system allows the depositing of cash into the machine and provides additional functions, such as transferring money by wire, paying bills or purchasing end user items from the machine.

In accordance with another aspect of the invention, the automated banking system machine recognizes the cash inserted into the machine, totals it, and provides communication via a modem or the like connected to a banking network to pay a bill or to purchase of a money order. The user will write the amount into the money order blank within the machine. After having been written, the machine will dispense the money order to the user. The automated method and apparatus provides for the cash purchase by the user of items being dispensed from the machine such as lottery tickets, theater tickets, postage stamps or the like.