Ahlibank is looking towards investing in mobile ATMs, says deputy CEO for retail banking Andrew McKechnie.

By Peter Alagos
Business Reporter

Ahlibank is planning to deploy mobile ATM machines in labour camps and locations where many migrant workers congregate as part of its efforts to support Qatar's new Wage Protection System (WPS).
Ahlibank deputy CEO for retail banking Andrew McKechnie told Gulf Times on Thursday the bank is looking towards investing in mobile ATMs for migrant workers. The machines, he said, would be available by the first quarter of 2016 as a complementary service and part of the bank’s “natural expansion” of its ATM network.
Once implemented, Ahilbank would publish the routes at the Qatar Central Bank (QCB) on a weekly basis, McKechnie said. “For the schedule of the routes, we’ll try to coincide it with payday as much as possible. That’s another way of expanding our ATM availability to migrant workers and our customers, in general,” he said.
Officials from the Ministry of Labour and Social Services have announced that the state will enforce the WPS on November 3. The new salary payment scheme requires companies to transfer salaries electronically to employees’ bank accounts.
Some workers have observed that the WPS could lead to a shortage of ATMs as the new payment scheme will increase the number of ATM card holders.
ATM cards would provide migrant workers a secure means of keeping their salaries. But McKechnie also said migrant workers can use their payroll cards for point-of-sales transactions.
“If you’re using a payroll card, it has to be compliant with QCB regulations and they’ve already mandated what the card has to be, so migrant workers can go to an ATM or to a retailer and use their cards in a normal way,” he explained.
He added: “Other banks already operate mobile ATMs but for Ahlibank, we will seek to use it for the labour camps and also for big events as this will help in increase both the bank’s services and brand awareness.”
McKechnie said Ahlibank will continue to expand its network of ATMs across a number of locations in Qatar this year “and we expect that to continue until next year.” He noted that the stations of the Doha Metro Project, once completed, would serve as additional locations for ATMs.
“We continually search for additional locations and the upcoming metro stations are going to provide the opportunity for us to expand our ATM network considering the added footfall and traffic provided by these areas,” he said.
He also said the metro stations could introduce new technologies such as cashless transactions, “tap-and-go” technology, and pre-paid cards.
“These technologies could also change the way people transact business with exchange houses. Remittance opportunity for the banks is another area where we and other banks will look at for sure,” he pointed out.