Canara Bank Launches India’s First OTP-Based ATM Cash Withdrawal Facility Powered by ACI Worldwide

ACI Worldwide (NASDAQ: ACIW), a leading global provider of real-time electronic payment and banking solutions, today announced that Canara Bank has successfully launched PIN + OTP cash withdrawal through Canara Bank ATMs for Canara Bank card holders—using ACI’s portfolio of Universal Payments solutions.

One of the leading banks in India, Canara Bank has a network of more than 8,800 ATMs across the country. With the introduction of its OTP-based cash withdrawal facility, Canara Bank ATMs will feature an added layer of security for cash withdrawals above ₹10,000 in a day. One-time password (OTP) is a system-generated numeric string of characters that authenticates the user for a single transaction or login session. This additional factor of authentication will protect Canara Bank card holders from unauthorized ATM cash withdrawals.

Introduced on August 15, 2019, the OTP-based cash withdrawal system is now active across all Canara Bank ATMs. Canara Bank, a leading public sector lender, partnered with ACI to develop capabilities that initiate a request for OTP generation. Using ACI’s market-leading UP Retail Payments solution, this system was completed within a one-month period. UP Retail Payments, based on ACI’s Universal Payments (UP) Framework, is built on open service-oriented architecture for robust payments orchestration. The solution delivers 24x7 secure payment capabilities and is currently used by 8 of the world’s top 10 banks. With the introduction of this facility, there will be no major changes in the process to withdraw cash from Canara Bank ATMs; however, the facility will not be applicable for transactions when a Canara Bank card holder withdraws from another bank’s ATM.

Once card holders enter the amount they wish to withdraw, UP Retail Payments automatically verifies the transaction amount and current usage of the card holder at the backend. If it exceeds the configured OTP limit value of ₹10,000 in a day, the solution—in real-time—sends an OTP to the card holder after authenticating the requisite systems, and simultaneously sends a response to the ATM to display the OTP entry screen. This approach safeguards customers against risks while using debit cards for cash withdrawals at ATMs—helping banks to avoid fallback/ skimmed fraud transactions in Canara bank ATMs.