1 Link Guarantee Ltd, a consortium of banks in Pakistan that enable seamless financial transactions on a day-to-day basis have recently come up with a new solution to facilitate consumers. A new ATM/Bank Branch locator application has been released for Android, iOS and Blackberry repositories with a Windows Phone being submitted and currently in certification process after which it will go live for Windows based smartphones.
Facts and Features:
The overall user interface is fairly good and kept minimal and is quite user friendly for all ages. It’s pertinent to mention here that it’s the first app of it’s kind that’s available on all major mobile ecosystems. Warid in the past has launched an ATM locator app but it was only introduced for Android hence iOS, Blackberry and Windows Phone users had no such facility available. Also, 1 Link is the most authentic source for all data related to ATM booths and banking branches. This application will help users find their nearest ATM booths and bank branches from the 9500 ATMs of over 38 banks in Pakistan. Not just that, you can select up to 15 branches/ATMs to be favourites for easy access. You can also get a route from your current location to the selected ATM booth. It uses GPS coordinates to locate your position and you can even dial the concerned bank from within the application itself which is a good feature to have built-in. There are also filters like Bank, City and Branch code which makes things easier if you are looking for a particular bank or a specific branch. Additionally there’s a news feed as well that shows you the latest content related to banking!
Suggestions/Feedback:
The user experience is marred by little niggles such as the lack of distance in the route view as well as showing just one branch on the map at a single time. Also we found in our intensive usage that some ATMs are not visible whereas some showed wrong names instead of their actual ones. Also when the “Filter by City” option is used, it has no check in place if the fields are empty or not it still progresses to the next page and doesn’t show the desired results. Furthermore,we think a feature should be added that lets you choose your default bank because apart from cash withdrawal, you cannot avail facilities such as mobile recharge and utility bill payment from only your own bank’s ATM.
In this regard, we approached Mr. Faisal Ijaz, Head of Innovation at 1 Link who told us that his team is working round the clock to update the ATM data to make sure it’s accurate and new features will be added in the near future.
Our Verdict:
We have pointed out some caveats above along with some missing features but we believe that it’s a newly introduced app and some teething problems can always be remedied in subsequent updates and more features can be added to facilitate consumers with their banking needs in a more positive way. But in all fairness it’s a decent attempt at putting up a locator service together. We also appreciate the wide availability on major mobile ecosystems. The news feed can also be very helpful if regularly updated with changes in tax/intrest rates and other information related to banking which can turn this into a one-stop for all your banking information needs.
Get the App:
Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=pk.net.onelink.android
iOS: https://itunes.apple.com/pk/app/1link-atm-locator/id1053416078?mt=8
BlackBerry: https://appworld.blackberry.com/webstore/content/59985958/?lang=en&countrycode=PK
Make sure to try the application and see if it pinpoints nearby ATMs in your locality. Let us know how your experience went! We’d really recommend this application as it’s really helpful if you want to know about your nearest ATM booth/Bank branch.
