Mobile payments app Spare wants to kill the ATM. Spare is a product of startup Mercuri Systems, headed by entrepreneur D’Ontra Hughes. The idea of Spare is to make businesses, in this case hotels, into cash-dispensers, obviating the need for ATMs, which often carry hefty fees and subject users to the risk of identity theft from card skimmers. The beta test beginning this week will run for a few months at several Los Angeles-area hotels. The idea came from when Hughes was working at a large Los Angeles-area hotel that had a popular bar inside. Neither the bar nor hotel lobby had an ATM, so customers had to cross the busy street in front of the hotel to use a no-name ATM if they wanted to have cash on hand. Hughes had the insight that it would make more sense if the hotel or bar, both of which had cash in hand, could simply dispense it to customers. This is what Spare hopes to accomplish. The idea has potentially wide-reaching applications. Why would a convenience store or fast-food restaurant, with plenty of cash in the till, give over valuable space to an ATM that collects fees for a third party? [...]
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