Re:No Shirt, No Swipe, No Service
by mortenjorck on Wednesday July 25, 2018 @08:21PM
(#17614142)
All good points. If the install market for these is fast-casual restaurants, it's probably not unreasonable to cap them at something like $20 per transaction. While the cards should be reloadable, they could probably also have limits for both carried balance and reload frequency, and the presence of human staff at restaurants should also deter money-laundering activity.
After a quick search, it looks like someone in Portland tried to do something along these lines: https://www.atmmarketplace.com/news/reverse-atm-caters-to-po...
It doesn’t look like it went anywhere, online info on the company is scant apart from a few press releases.
Basically you’re just talking about offering a physical cash-friendly terminal to the digital economy. Maybe someone should try that angle. Counterfeit and money laundering will be huge issues. It’s hard to anonymously launder money at scale with storebought prepaid cards, because of the humans in the sales loop (which also allow non-money-laundering transactions to happen anonymously). A workable compromise might be to require a SSN/PIN combo at the reverse ATM.
As for counterfeit: sophisticated scanners? I think many banks allow you to deposit cash or checks at their larger, bank-branded ATMs. Perhaps that technology is available. You’ll probably just end up buying “counterfeit insurance” and then try to get whatever tech will drive your premiums down.