Abstract:
A dispensing container for storing valuable media and a self-service terminal (such as an ATM) for using these dispensing containers are described. The container has frangible portions to allow opening of the container, so that when the container is loaded into an ATM, the ATM breaks the frangible portions to define an opening through which the contents of the container are dispensed. The ATM incorporates a housing for storing these containers; a breaching mechanism for breaking the frangible portions and defining an opening; an emptying mechanism for removing valuable media from the opening; and a discharging mechanism for discarding empty containers.

Description:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 
     The invention relates to a dispensing container for use with a self-service terminal (SST), and to an SST for using such a dispensing container. In particular, the invention relates to a dispensing container for storing valuable media in sheet form, such as currency, share certificates, flight coupons, and such like; and to an SST for dispensing valuable media from such dispensing containers. 
     Many conventional SSTs, such as Automated Teller Machines (ATMs), dispense valuable media. An ATM dispenses currency in the form of bank notes. These bank notes are stored in a reusable dispensing container called a currency cassette. A typical currency cassette is shown in FIG.  1 . The cassette  10  is typically a strong metal or plastics box  12  having a removable lid  14 . The lid  14  has a slot  16  (which is automatically covered when not engaged with an ATM) through which an ATM removes notes  18  from the cassette  10  in response to a cash withdrawal request initiated by a user. 
     The cassette  10  stores a large number of bank notes (e.g. three thousand notes)  18  in a single stack. The notes  18  rest on a plate  20  which is urged towards the top  22  of the box  12  by a spring  24 . When a cassette  10  has been filled with bank notes  18  (FIG. 1 shows the cassette approximately half full) then the lid  14  is secured to the front of the cassette  10 , and the cassette  10  is loaded into an ATM. 
     In use, when a cash withdrawal function is requested, the ATM removes one bank note at a time from the cassette  10  until the correct number of notes have been removed. When the number of notes  18  in the cassette  10  falls below a predetermined threshold then the cassette must be removed to a currency center, the contents of the cassette reconciled to ensure that all of the bank notes have been accounted for, and the cassette replenished with bank notes. 
     This type of cassette  10  has a number of disadvantages. Cassettes which have to be replenished still contain a number of notes and therefore must be guarded carefully when conveyed between the ATM and the replenishment center. The replenishing operation is quite complex because the remaining bank notes have to be reconciled with the number of bank notes dispensed. The cassettes are expensive. The cassettes cannot be replenished in use in an ATM. When a cassette is removed then the ATM is put out of service until a replacement cassette is inserted. 
     SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION 
     It is an object of the invention to obviate or mitigate one or more of the above disadvantages. 
     According to the invention, a dispensing container for dispensing valuable media in sheet form is characterized in that the container has one or more frangible portions for facilitating opening of the container, so that when the container is loaded into a self-service terminal, the one or more frangible portions can be broken to allow dispensing of the contents of the container. 
     The one or more frangible portions may be in the form of perforations defining one or more openings in the container. 
     By virtue of the invention a low cost container is provided. 
     Preferably, the container is intended to be only one-time usable. It will be understood that the term one-time usable means that the container is not replenished with media after use. The container may be discarded after use or it may be used in a recycling process so that old containers are re-worked to produce new containers. 
     Preferably, the container is made of recyclable material such as cardboard, so that after use, a discarded container may be collected and recycled for use in another container. 
     The container may be less than 300 mm in height (where the height is the dimension determining the number of media items that may be stored, the length and width determining the surface dimensions of the media that may be stored). Preferably, the container is less than 100 mm in height; more preferably, less than 70 mm in height; advantageously, less than 50 mm in height; most preferably, less than 30 mm in height. The advantage of having a low height container is that fewer notes can be stored, therefore, the security risk involved in transporting the container is reduced. 
     Preferably, the container has a tamper evident construction. Conveniently, the tamper evident construction is implemented by having a seal which is highly visible when broken. 
     Preferably, the container has a machine-readable identifier. Conveniently, the machine-readable identifier is a bar-code including information such as the number of notes stored in the container, the denomination of notes stored. Alternatively, the machine-readable identifier is an electronic tag. 
     According to the invention a self-service terminal is characterized in that the terminal incorporates 
     a housing for storing containers; 
     a breaching mechanism for providing an opening in the containers; 
     an emptying mechanism for removing valuable media from the opening in the containers; and 
     a discharging mechanism for discarding empty containers. 
     Preferably, only one container in the housing is open at a time, so that a container is only opened if the previous container has been emptied. Alternatively, a second container may be opened when the number of valuable media items in a first container falls below a predetermined level. 
     Preferably, the breaching mechanism breaks one or more frangible portions in a container. 
     Preferably, the housing automatically presents a container to the emptying mechanism so that when the discharging mechanism discards an empty container the housing presents another container to the emptying mechanism. 
     Conveniently, the housing stores the containers in a stack arrangement with the bottom container adjacent the emptying mechanism so that as a container is discarded the adjacent container falls towards the emptying mechanism. In other embodiments, the housing may store the containers in other configurations, for example a generally horizontal configuration or a circular configuration. 
     The emptying mechanism may be a conventional pick mechanism as used in conventional ATMs. 
     The discharging mechanism may be an actuatable support plate. 
     Preferably, the SST further comprises a charging slot for receiving one or more containers from an owner of the SST; and a charging mechanism for loading the housing with the received containers. This feature has the advantage that the media within an SST can be replenished by the owner adding one or more containers without having to shut down or open up the SST. 
     Preferably, the SST further comprises a testing mechanism for verifying the integrity of a tamper evident seal. The testing mechanism may be responsive to the charging mechanism so that each received container is tested and only conveyed to the housing if the tamper evident seal is intact. Any container failing the verification may be retained or returned to the owner. 
     Preferably, the SST further comprises auditing means for reconciling on a per container basis the amount of media in a container with the amount of media dispensed by the SST from that container. The advantage of this is that the contents of each container can be audited immediately after dispensing the last media item from a container. If the number of media items dispensed equals the number of media items originally in the container then the next container may be opened. If the contents of the container are not reconciled with the number of media items dispensed then the media dispensing facility may be temporarily stopped until the SST is examined. 
     It will be appreciated that one feature of the invention is that the dispensing container does not have any urging means for urging media to one surface of the container: the urging means is incorporated in the SST into which the container is loaded. 
     Another feature of the invention is that reconciliation and auditing is performed automatically by the SST and only has to be performed manually in cases where the automatic audit fails to reconcile the media dispensed with the media in a dispensing container. When these dispensing containers are used in an ATM they greatly increase the flexibility of the number and types of bank notes that can be dispensed. 
     Yet another feature of the invention is that an ATM using these containers can selfreconcile after each container has been emptied. 
     A further feature of the invention is that an ATM using such containers generally only requires movement of cash to the ATM, not from the ATM to a currency center; this obviates the requirements for high security transportation from the ATM to the currency center. 
    
    
     BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS 
     FIG. 1 is a perspective view of a prior art currency cassette for use in an ATM. 
     An embodiment of the present invention will now be described, by way of example, with reference to the rest of the accompanying drawings, in which: 
     FIGS. 2A and 2B are front perspective views of a dispensing container according to one embodiment of the invention, before and after the container is opened; 
     FIG. 3 is a rear perspective view of the dispensing container of FIG. 2B; 
     FIG. 4 is a flowchart showing the steps performed by an ATM when it receives a dispensing container; 
     FIG. 5 is a schematic view of part of an ATM according to one embodiment of the invention; and 
     FIG. 6 is a flowchart showing the steps performed by an ATM when dispensing bank notes from a container. 
    
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION 
     Referring first to FIGS. 2A and 2B, a dispensing container  100  in the form of a currency container is shown. The container  100  is made of cardboard and measures approximately 160 mm long (dimension  102 ), 100 mm broad (dimension  104 ), and 30 mm high (dimension  106 ). The container  100  is filled with bank notes  108  (shown in dotted line) which are stacked in the container  100  as shown. The front of the container  100  has a frangible portion  110  in the form of a perforated strip extending around parts of four surfaces of the container  100  to define an opening  112 . 
     FIG. 2B shows the container  100  with the perforated strip  110  broken and the portion of cardboard defined by the strip  110  removed to reveal the opening  112 . When the perforated strip  110  is broken and the cardboard removed one bank note  108  is exposed by the opening  112 . 
     The perforated strip  110  has a tamper evident seal  111  so that on loading into an ATM, the ATM can determine whether the container  100  has been tampered with. A bar-code  113  (FIGS. 2A and 2B) may be applied to one or more of the surfaces of the container  100  so that an ATM can automatically read the bar-code  113  on loading the container  100  into the ATM. Typically, the bar-code  113  would contain information such as the type of notes in the container  100  and the number of notes in the container  100 . 
     FIG. 3 shows a rear perspective view of the container  100 . The rear of the container  100  has two apertures  114  for receiving pushing rods  120  (FIG. 5) for urging the bank notes  108  towards the front of the container  100 . 
     FIG. 4 is a flowchart illustrating the steps performed by an ATM when a container  100  is loaded into the ATM. The container  100  is loaded into the ATM via a container deposit drawer in the ATM. The ATM receives the container  100  (step  130 ) and verifies that the tamper evident seal  111  is intact (step  132 ). If the seal  111  is not intact then the container is rejected (step  134 ); if the seal is intact then the bar-code  113  on the container  100  is read (step  136 ). The data read from the bar-code  113  is then stored in a memory (the memory is not shown) (step  138 ) and the container  100  is conveyed to a housing for storage (step  140 ). 
     FIG. 5 is a schematic view of part of an ATM and shows a housing  150  for storing containers  100  in a stack. Five containers  100   a,b,c,d,e  are shown stored in the housing  150 , and one container  100   f  is shown being discharged from the housing  150  into a receptacle  152 . In FIG. 5 the dark shading in each container  100  indicates how full of bank notes that container is. 
     A discharging mechanism  160  is located at the bottom of the housing  150 . The discharging mechanism  160  comprises a support plate  162 , an actuator  164 , and actuatable separating fingers  166 . The lowest of the five stored containers  100   e  is supported by plate  162  and the other containers are spaced apart by the separating fingers  166 . 
     When a container (e.g.  100   f ) is empty then it is discarded into receptacle  152 . This is implemented by the support plate  162  being retracted from the housing  150  by actuator  164 . This causes the container  100 f to fall into receptacle  152  under the influence of gravity. The support plate  162  is then inserted into the housing  150 . The lowest separating finger  166  is then retracted to allow container  100   e  to fall to the position previously occupied by container  100   f ; the lowest separating finger  166  is then returned to its original position. The second lowest separating finger  166  is then retracted to allow container  100   d  to fall to the position previously occupied by  100   e . This process continues until all of the containers  100  have moved down the housing  150 . Thus, the containers  100  ripple down the housing each time that a container  100  is ejected from the housing. 
     FIG. 6 shows the process steps involved in dispensing notes from the containers  100  and in loading new containers  100 . 
     Referring to FIG.  5  and FIG. 6, as container  100   e  arrives at the plate  162 , a breaching mechanism  170  engages the container  100 e and removes the perforated strip  110  to define the window  112  (step  200 ). An emptying mechanism  172  in the form of a conventional ATM pick wheel is then aligned with the opening  112  for removing individual bank notes  108  from the container  100   e  (step  202 ). Notes are dispensed in response to cash withdrawal requests until the container  100   e  is empty (steps  202  and  204 ). 
     When the container  100   e  is empty (i.e. when the last bank note  108  has been dispensed) then the support plate  162  is retracted by the actuator  164  and the empty container  100   e  falls into receptacle  152  for disposal or recycling. 
     The ATM accesses the memory storing the bar-code information (step  206 ) and attempts to reconcile (step  208 ) the number of notes dispensed from container  100   e  with the number of notes in the container  100   e  as stated in the bar-code information (stored in memory). 
     If the number of notes dispensed does not equal the number of notes stated to be in the container  100   e  then an audit fail message is generated (step  210 ). If the number of notes dispensed equals the number of notes stated to be in the container  100   e  then the ATM proceeds to load the next container  100   d  (step  212 ) and the above procedure is repeated. If there are no more containers  100  then a money shortage message is generated (step  214 ) to notify the owner of the ATM that more containers  100  are required. 
     The auditing and reconciling procedure may be performed by the ATM processor as ATMs record every transaction for auditing purposes. 
     Using containers  100  in an ATM ensures that the only reverse cash in transit is from the reject bin (a standard feature on all ATMs for storing bank notes which have not dispensed properly): there are no partially filled currency cassettes. 
     Various modifications may be made to the above described embodiments within the scope of the present invention. For example, in other embodiments, other configurations of housings may be used; for example, the housing may be configured so that containers are stored in a rotary arrangement. The frangible portions may be in the form of, for example, one or more weakened sections in the container, or one or more straps which maintain a flap in a closed position. In other embodiments, the containers may dispense share certificates, stamps, tickets, and such like.