For Praveen Jadhav, a Mumbai resident, it was a matter of satisfaction that he did not have to wait long before an ATM to get cash. Not because the queues had become any shorter, but because he was able to trace the second best functional ATM in his vicinity on a mobile application named ‘Walnut’. A feature introduced on Monday night, the application has become popular among people looking for working ATMs. While this is an application that helps users manage and track their daily expenses, the new addition was brought in considering the present need of the same. “Though we believed in this initiative, we wanted to assist with a feature that could help the public at large. Since the time it has been introduced, it has managed to attract a lot of new users. Users of the app would be informed of the functional ATMs around their vicinity, the last when they were functional and also updates them about the status of queues if any,” said Amit Bhor, co-founder and CEO of the application. Walnut works by tracking card payments of its million users across to check the status on its functionality and asking them to update the status on their queues. Till Tuesday, they had managed to tap at least 10,000 ATMs nationwide with as many as 2,000 ATMs in Mumbai. “Though I make most of my payments online or through card usage, withdrawing cash was not an immediate need for me whatsoever. The last time I tried to withdraw, the machines had already run out of cash. Through this app, I would not have to rush and comfortably look for a time or a place to avail my cash from a functional machine,” Jadhav said. “Mumbai, being the financial capital of the country, has witnessed the largest demand for cash. Through Walnut users across the city, we are able to give the required information they need as soon as possible on a real-time basis,” Amit added. In comparison to 10,000 new users a day, Walnut received almost 40,000 new users on Tuesday only due to ATM tracking feature. “After tracing data of ATMs across, we have found that their functionality and capacity has witnessed a large scale increase. In future we would also like to outsource data and bring in other features that could tell the amount of Rs 2,000 and Rs 500 notes in the ATMs or which stores are accepting payment through cards or online facilities,” Amit added. “The major advantage of the application is that it is calming the rush of public to withdraw cash.Through this they will be able to find out that there are many functional ATMs around them and they can withdraw only how much they need instead of hoarding,” Anurag Sinha, co-founder of the application, said.
