Hyderabad, India

Hyderabad's automated teller machine (ATM) is the first to ever dispense gold coins rather than ordinary cash. With assistance from Hyderabad-based firm Opencube Technologies, Goldsikka launched India's first Gold ATM. An individual only needs to insert their debit or credit card into the ATM to withdraw up to five kilogramme of gold coin. additionally,  there are eight choices for the gold weight, ranging from 0.5 to 100 grammes. This unique ATM machine was launched on 3 December. This is the first real-time gold ATM in the world. 

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The Vice President of Goldsikka Pratap said, "Goldsikka Limited is a company incorporated 4 years back. We are into bullion trading. Our CEO got an innovative concept of dispensing gold coins through an ATM machine. After doing a bit of research, we found out that it is possible. We tied up with a start-up company, OpenCube technologies. They and our in-house department which gave design and development support with respect to technology."

"Each ATM has a capacity of holding upto 5kgs of gold which is worth around Rs.2-3 crores. The ATM machine dispenses coins ranging from 0.5 grams to 100 grams. There are 8 available options, including 0.5 grams, 1 gram, 2 grams, 5 grams, 10 grams, 20 grams, 50 grams and 100 grams. People can come here and get the coins directly instead of going to jewellery shops. These coins are 24-carat gold and 999 certified. The customers will get their investment returns at a live price without any wastage. The important feature of the ATM is prices are updated live. We take the London bullion market as our market year. The prices there are updated and displayed on the screen and so are the taxes. Today, we had a footfall of around 20 people till the afternoon. We are hoping that more people would use this," he said.

He added, "We are planning the next 3-4 machines in Hyderabad at the airport, old city, Ameerpet and Kukatpally. We also received orders from Karimnagar and Warangal. We are focusing on Telangana first as there is already the concept of Bangaru Telangana. We will further move to South India and set up around 3,000 ATMs across the country over a period of time. We are also planning to go global. We will also come up with a version 2 of this machine."

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Abiut  he said that the ATM has a built-in camera and sound alarm system."We have already taken care of the required security measures as other ATMs. The ATM has a built-in camera and sound alarm system, which will trigger if there someone tries to tamper with it. We have 3 external CCTV cameras and we are also getting tied up with local police stations," he added.

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