@Sheamus

I think this is excellent idea, you can already purchase airtime for your mobile at a ATM, why not other goods and services?

The only potential drawback I can see from this is if the two companies in question decide to harvest data on the customers in form saleable databases, although this could be dealt with by the customer declining consent with the bank and also the vendor for yet more after-sales junk mail.

You should and pitch this idea to the banks, even if you charged a fraction of one tenth of a percent of all transactions for use of your idea, you'd be richer than God overnight.

It's probably data privacy/data protection laws that stop this happening. You would have to give consent for Amazon and the bank to exchange your details. What if Amazon was hacked? There's a load of bank account details right there for the taking. Commercially I think it's a very decent idea. Maybe if Tesco, with their banking ambitions, tested it out, it might just work.

As Jayce says above, many ATMs allow you to top up your mobile phone. Wouldn't consent simply come when you click on the 'buy now' button, like anything else that you buy? It couldn't be anything but above-board, as it's directly via your own bank account.

Perhaps Amazon would treat these as one-off purchases, and the bank itself would be the customer. That would likely eliminate any data protection issues. Or maybe you could link your bank and Amazon in some way.

Hacking doesn't really come into it. If Amazon was hacked *now*, your data would be at risk. Most people who use Amazon have their debit and credit cards on there. That's a separate issue and not directly related to this venture.

Amazon is the world's biggest retailer - if they get hacked, a lot of people could be in trouble, and it wouldn't have anything to do with this idea! :)

(The more I think about it, the more I like the idea of each bank being the customer of Amazon. Amazon charges the bank the amount less 10%, for example, and they pass the full payment on to you.)

I'd hate to be the guy behind you in the ATM queue when you're ruminating on which DVD to buy...

Roj does make a good point, I already suffer from "ATM rage" when someone is doing a months banking (why is it always on a friday evening as well) behind a queue of people that just want to withdraw enough money for beerage+taxi home.
However I still stand by my original comment that this is an excellent idea.
Customised ATM's like this installed in colleges, universities and other similar establishments would be excellent money savers/makers and also providers of cheap affordable music as opposed to using more 'traditional' methods of obtaining sounds.
Regarding the privacy thing, one way that this (could?) work is that the end consumer gives prior informed consent to there bank to store details of there purchases and they allocate these tastes to an anonymous randomly generated prefix.
This prefix is then forwarded to Amazon & Co who then have the opportunity to tantalise the customer with offers like "You've bought X & Y in the past, can we interest you in Z for price £?".
No personal data has been divulged to a third party and if the customer hits no, the vending company knows not to suggest that deal again.
Yes I realise how much like Phorm this reeks of, but I'm talking of informed prior consent and no one is pimping your data underhand, just giving you the end user a chance to buy some shineys at a heavily discounted price.
Thoughts?

This transaction would have an enormous emphasis on speed. It's not something you're meant to um and ah over for hours on end. Whilst waiting for your money, the offer(s) are flashed up, and you either choose one or you don't.

If after testing we determined that multiple choice meant that speed was an issue, then I'd propose borrowing Amazon's golden box idea. Once per day you were flashed up an offer that was just for you. The offer was so good it was hard to turn down - using my example above, maybe the Muse album for £5.99. If you didn't take it there and then, it was gone. And you'd get a different offer tomorrow.

Amazon already know your likes and so offers could be really quite personal. (Tesco could do something similar, too.)

I like the music angle as I think you're more prepared to buy music after listening to it (as you would in a pub/club etc). Perhaps offers would change depending on the time of day - music at night, books and DVDs in the day.

Those with no interest could, of course, opt out. And never be bothered again.

Regarding privacy, as said if the bank was Amazon's customer it wouldn't be an issue. But that would prevent Amazon from knowing what you like and making your golden box offer truly special. If the offers were generic (i.e., the current top 10) then the bank being the customer would work well.

It's a good idea but I would be inclined to go mental if I wanted to get some cash out quickly, for a taxi for instance, and someone in front of me was picking out a DVD/CD.

As I said above, the focus here would be on the speed of the transaction. There's no browsing - you just get your offer(s) and you either buy or you don't. And you wouldn't get these offers every time you put your card in (i.e., multiple times per day) - just the once. Take it or leave it.

Some people already spend ages on an ATM checking their balance, printing out receipts etc, and while nobody likes being stuck behind them this really wouldn't be any different.

The golden box idea is really the way forward with this - it radically cuts down on any time issues and if personalised could be a killer feature.

Yeah fair enough, if it was just a quick buy this or don't thing then maybe, but wouldn't it be very hit and miss or would it have access to your Amazon wishlist for example?

The issue I have with a lot of these is that we are constantly bombarded with adverts in everything we do. It gets to a point where they blend into the background even if they appear to stand out as the user is so focused on the task at hand etc.

They really need to integrate buying into applications. I would love to have a shopping app that let me add my favourite shops and then buy from there and have it all arrive at home.

It would work as a variant of Amazon.com's golden box offer, which is personalised to you. It could be from your wish list, although that doesn't allow the retailer to tailor the offer so easily, and they're not in it to lose money.

This screen would just pop up between asking for your money and it that transaction being processed. Would take a few seconds for you to peruse the offer and decide whether to click 'buy' or not. Maybe a different button could allow you to see the top tens etc if there was nobody behind you in the queue.

Not that the latter really matters - people take their times at ATMs as it is, and while irritating if it's not you it isn't really anybody else's business. But as said it would be important to make this as quick and effortless as possible.

There would of course be hits and misses - that's kind of the point. No system can tailor the perfect offer to everybody every time. The offers would have to be very strong so that people on the fence would be swayed to click 'buy'. But not everybody wants Muse at £5.99, granted. But enough people do to make this very interesting indeed.

(Another way to do this is during setup you tick the boxes of the kinds of offers you'd like to see - music, books, DVDs, electronics, etc.)

Using the new Muse album as an example then I could see how it would work quite effectively if it was geared towards mainstream purchases and was a quick yes or no.

It will probably end up happening in some form anyway. The amount of revenue streams the media industry generates it's surprising you are not wiping your arse with adverts - now there's an idea!

Would absolutely be mainstream purchases. It's not meant to replace or rival Amazon (or Tesco etc) - it just seems an obvious and easy way for banks (and the retailer) to generate a little extra revenue.