An ATM in your living room
At first look, the ATM Bank looks like a toy. You know, the sort of thing best summed up with a remark about training our kids to regard banking as a consumption facilitation service. As it happens, it's pitched as a serious at-home alternative to the real thing!
Wouldn't it be ideal to have a cash machine in your front room? There's nothing worse than having to walk half a mile down the road in grotty weather to pick up your very own money. This nifty mini ATM Machine is the piggy bank of the new millennium. Every time you make a deposit the ATM keeps a running total giving you an account balance you can keep tabs on on a regular basis. Withdrawing money couldn't be easier, just pop the card in the slot, enter your PIN and select the amount you need. The high street in the comfort of your own home and without the 'Sorry- Out of Order' disappointments.
It costs £25 and you don't get a free toaster for opening an account. What's the overdraft policy?
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and do it all without generating any interest on your money! Yippee!
I say boycott it purely for the misuse of an acronym ("ATM machine" indeed).
#1: my thought exactly. if you keep your cash at home, how does the bank work with it?
Which brings me to the next question: do you first have to empty your bank account (i.e. pay out your own fortune in cash) and fill your home machine? Else what the point?
Speaking of a point: if all your money is in the ATM at home, why call it ATM and not "piggybank" like the thing it actually would become no different from?
Maybe I'm being thick, but I just don't get it.
@garr It is just a piggybank, with the gimmick that it also tracks your deposits and withdrawals, so that you can get a balance. My six year-old has something similar, to help her understand about money. If you already keep large quantities of cash at home for some obscure reason (perhaps money laundering?), then this may be slightly useful in keeping track of your balances. For most adults, its just silly.
oh... well... uh.. hold in your laugh while I search a hole to stick my head in. Damn I am thick today... :)
You're not going to gain significant interest on a checking account. The ATM fees for withdrawing your own money from an ATM from anywhere than your own bank would eat that up quickly. If this ATM doubles as a serious safe, then it makes financial sense (as an alternative to a small checking account).
Yup, this unit looks almost identical to a unit I have bought several of, for use as a fake ATM at Burning Man.
They are most definitely toys. When you want to withdraw money, you tell it how much, and it lets you then push the button to pop open the door at the bottom, and you can pull out the bills manually. Nothing connects what you remove with what you say you took out.
It's for children. If I could get a real dispensing toy ATM for this price I would jump at it for my fake ATM project.
The "card" is just a piece of plastic. Any card works.
I think it's a great idea. For years I've had a bank counter in my living room with a full time bank clerk sitting behind it. It destroyed any Feng Shui that I was trying achieve. This ATM looks a lot more discreet and desirable.
On another topic, I've just brought out a range of toys. They're Roadkill Toys. Teddies with their blood and guts coming out. They come in body bags with toes tags and death certificates.
I'd like to get feedback on them from you guys.
Check them out at www.roadkilltoys.com