KARACHI, March 31: Carrying an ATM (automated teller machine) cards, a man leaves his home for office near the PIDC building with money barely enough to pay the bus fare.

He stops at the PIDC to get some cash from the National Bank’s ATM machine, a facility allowing ATM card holders to draw money from the machines installed by banks at certain places. The machine asks him: “Please insert your card.” He does so. It lists a number of options along a vertical row of buttons. (You may press the button showing Rs4,500, Rs3,500, Rs2,500, Rs2,000... down to Rs500. Or you may ask for “other amounts,” which should be not more than Rs10,000 on one single day.)

The man presses the “other amounts” button and mentions the amount he needs. The machine displays on its screen: “Please wait. Your transaction is being processed.” After a two-three minutes pause, there appears this message: “We are sorry. This transaction cannot be performed right now. May we help you with anything else?”

The man tries the other options, including various amounts, and even the “balance,” but every time the same message appears: “We are sorry...”

The man rushes to another machine, off the main Clifton road. Tries all his options. Fails. Short of both money and time, but sure that the head office machine must be operative, he hires a taxi and reaches Boulton Market. He repeats the same methods with the head office machines. This machine, too, disappoints him.

As he doesn’t have money to pay the taxi driver, he suffers further. But that’s another story. And almost every holder of the National Bank’s ATM card has to tell a story of the inefficient system and his disappointment with it.

There are so many complaints against the five machines installed at the bank’s head office, its corporate branch, Tariq Road, the PIDC building, and at Clifton.

The Tariq Road machine has been out of order for several months. Nobody seems to be bothered about it. The other four machines work erratically. “The corporate branch machine is in a dark alley and one feels unsafe with even a small amount,” a customer told Dawn.

Sometimes the message reads: “The machine is out of order temporarily.” And this temporary phase may run into several days. Sometimes there is no paper to record the amount you are drawing or to tell you about the balance in your account. Sometimes a slip flicks out of the machine’s slit without anything printed on it.

Recently, the NBP installed new machines in Islamabad. It is a good facility for salaried people. But inefficient as the system is, it is more of a problem than a convenience. A couple of other banks are running the card system to their customers’ complete satisfaction.

“During the past two years that I have had the card, I have rarely countered any problem,” says a young man at a bank’s ATM in Shaheen Complex building. “Sometimes it does happen that there is no cash in the machine. But that’s a rare and short-time occurrence.” — Naseer Ahmad