Micro-Bank: Handheld Secured Electronic Doorstep Banking System that allows Cash Withdrawal and Deposit Facility for Remote and Rural Areas

Micro-Bank: Handheld Secured Electronic Doorstep Banking System that allows Cash Withdrawal and Deposit Facility for Remote and Rural Areas
Banking in Rural Areas:
Today, banks have realized that their next huge customer base is not in the urban setting but in the often-neglected rural areas. However, reaching this customer base is not so easy, primarily because the rural areas are not as infrastructure-rich as their urban counterparts. Simple tasks like going to the ATM and withdrawing money make people in villages miss their working hours and, as a result, lose a significant part of their income as well. Hence there is a need to design a system that helps those people who can‟t leave their business premises for banking transactions.
Aim
The project aim is to create a secured handheld „doorstep banking‟ system called Micro-Bank machine to provide service to the customers in rural areas and remote places such as villages. The system can also be operated within and beyond the normal banking hours. The primary aim of the handheld machine is to provide banking services such as cash withdrawals and cash deposit without the person ever going to a bank.
Project Description:
The main idea of micro-bank system is that the bank should employ special persons who are licensed as the business correspondents (BC) to carry a micro bank machine with them. Each BC will be allocated to a particular micro-bank machine.
The project and its security features along with the workflow will be described in a step by step manner in the following text.
Step 1:
The customer who needs micro-bank service must call the customer care division of the bank and inform whether he wants to withdraw/deposit money. The bank server will choose the appropriate micro-bank unit and will send a query message to that. The micro-bank machine should reply with an acknowledge message when it sees the bank query. The server will then dispatch a message about the details of the customer including his account balance. The message also contains a One-Time Password (OTP) to the micro-bank machine that is allocated for that transaction. The same OTP is also sent to the customer mobile. The micro-bank system is always connected to the central banking server using GSM communication.
Step 2:
The micro-bank machine that receives the OTP information will record the time of the arrival of this message. The machine internally runs a Real-Time-Clock (RTC) with battery backup which is derived from the satellite clock available in the received GPS data. The device has a built in high accuracy GPS unit to get precise time as well as accurate location information. A 3 hr transaction expiry period is set by default. This means the transaction should be completed within this timeframe, if not the device automatically cancels that particular transaction from proceeding further. This info will be sent to the server.
Step 3:
The BC has to enter a touchscreen password using the QVGA Touchscreen TFT LCD Display inorder to physically unlock the screen. The BC can unlock the screen anytime he wishes, but like a smartphone, the screen will automatically get locked after a fixed (1 min) period of inactivity.
Step 4:
Each micro-bank machine is permitted to be used only within a particular region inorder to prevent an illegal usage out of that region and thus the device is locked in terms of its position. The current location of the device is tracked from GPS signals and the position is constantly verified with the region previously indicated by the server. This also helps to keep track of the location of the micro-bank machine in the event of misuse or a theft condition. An out of region condition brings the device to a halt and the error info is sent to the bank server.
Step 5:
On meeting the customer, the BC will verify the OTP on his device with that of the customer mobile. The customer needs to verify the OTP in his mobile against the micro-bank device. This mutual verification will authenticate both parties, and the transaction can now be started.
Step 6:
The identity of BC is first verified using a built in Fingerprint Scanner. This is to ensure that the device has not been ended up in the wrong hands. The device stores the fingerprint of the BC as well as the entire customer base in that region in its database. Now the customer will be asked to enter his fingerprint. It is also verified. This ensures the authenticity of each party.
Step 7:
Once the fingerprint verification is done, BC needs to enter a 4-PIN secret number on the touchscreen keypad shown in the TFT display. The customer is then allowed to insert his smartcard into its slot. The device has a Smartcard Reader functionality that grabs the details such as the customer ID, customer name and account number information from the smartcard and will be
verified against the server sent message. The smartcard is a permanent EEPROM memory that has got the customer details stored.
Step 8:
Now it the customers turn to enter his 4-PIN secret number on the touchscreen keypad, similar to that on the ATM machines. Once the PIN number is entered and verified, the machine will unlock the device for the final step in the transaction. The customer will now be asked to enter the amount to be withdrawn on the touchscreen display and the BC will dispatch the money to the customer. The customer must make a confirmation by typing the 4-PIN secret number again. The device checks this and sends a “money paid” message to the bank server.
If the customer wants to deposit the money, he/she needs to enter the amount as previously described and the cash should be handed over to the BC. Now the BC will enter the 4-PIN secret number again. The device verifies this and sends a “money collected” message to the bank server.
Step 9:
The device uses a Mini-Thermal Printer to automatically print the receipt as soon as the message has been sent. The bank server immediately sends a “Transaction Over” message to the machine indicating the completion of the entire transaction.
If any of the steps is not validated properly, the micro bank device will send the appropriate error message and stop any further transaction immediately. A Buzzer beep sound indicates message reception or transmission on GSM and also the error conditions during verification.
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But what if the BC runs away with the cash?
BCs are people who have a standing in the community — like village headmasters or postmen. They will be paid a salary every month to do the job. Not everybody can become a BC. They have to deposit a certain amount of money with the bank as security. The facility to track the location of the device has already been explained. This feature will help the bank to track in such an extreme scenario.
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The device can be completely operated in Offline mode that functions without a GSM unit. There are remote areas in India where even a GSM cellular connection is not feasible. The BC has to select the offline mode in such a case. The data collected during offline transactions will be stored in an internal 2-GB MicroSD memory card for storing the huge amount of data collected during such a transaction.
The device also has got USB 2.0 port to connect the device with the server. When the device is connected to the bank server, all the data collected will be transferred to the server database which in our case is a PC/Laptop.
Using the thermal printer a customer can receive a Bank Statement from the micro-bank machine.
The micro-bank machine has got a Panic Button to provide an additional level of protection for the BC. In a scenario such as money theft, pressing this button will immediately send an emergency alert message to the bank and police station. The message will contain the GPS position of the BC. This would allow the bank or police to take necessary action as soon as possible.
Thus the system provides the much needed banking services to large part of the country and can save wage loss of rural people approximately Rs 150 to 200 per bank branch visit. Cumulatively, these results in savings can add upto around rupees in hundreds of million per year.
List of Hardware
 Fingerprint Scanner
 Mini Thermal Printer
 Touchscreen TFT
 Smartcard Reader
 MicroSD
 USB 2.0
 GPS
 GSM
 Real Time Clock
 Buzzer
Software Tools Used:
 Programming Language: Embedded C
 Development Tool: LPCXpresso IDE (Eclipse based)
Embedded Protocols Used:
 I2C, SPI, UART.
Software Libraries Used:
 FAT-32 file system library to access files in memory card via SPI
 Graphics Library for TFT LCD display
 GSM module driver via UART
 GPS NMEA protocol driver via UART
 Smartcard Reader firmware via I2C
 Fingerprint Scanner driver firmware via UART
 Thermal printer driver firmware via UART
 Cortex-M3 peripheral device driver library
 CMSIS from ARM
Project Advantages:
• Helps rural area people to get banking services such as cash deposit and cash withdrawal.
• It would save people time and money as they need not leave the place where they are.
• The system can also be operated within and beyond the normal banking hours.
• Offline mode is available to operate it in completely remote areas where even GSM communication is not available.
• Storage capacity of fingerprint scanner is in greater than 250. But can be extended to more than thousand if required.
• Panic button feature prevents a money theft from BC.
• Because the machine is intended for rural area, power will be not be easily available in remote places. So, the system operates with battery power.
• Low power 32-bit ARM Cortex-M3 microcontroller enables highly deterministic operation using battery power only.