olar-powered automatic teller machines in India are making banking environmentally friendly and accessible for the residents in rural areas, which accounts for 70 percent of the country’s population.
According to Asia Times Online, in recent years, the potential within the rural market for India’s banking industry has been identified, but management and high costs have hampered full-scale expansion, Asia Times Online reports.
The Gramateller Indi helps in cutting costs by providing A.T.M.’s instead of full-service branches in areas where power supply might be erratic or totally absent, said Vortex Engineering Pvt. Ltd., the developer of the solar A.T.M.
The Gramateller consumes up to 90 percent less power than a conventional A.T.M. It only needs about five hours of exposure to the sun to operate for the whole day, and can function in temperatures from zero to 50 degrees Celsius without air-conditioning.
It also reportedly only costs one-tenth of conventional teller machines.
The Gramateller has been recognized as one of the «10-start-ups that will change your life» by TIME magazine in 2011, while Vortex has been named among the Technology Pioneers 2011 by the World Economic Forum.
State Bank of India, the country’s largest banking chain, has already installed 300 Gramatellers in the rural areas while 19 other banks are also using them in villages and small towns, Asia Times Online reports.
