Does it work without a mobile data connection? Regardless this is a great idea and I would love to know what it would take to convince other banks to do the same.
It doesn't - but usually everyone has a mobile data plan here and coverage is great, so it's not a concern. In the rare event you can use the card as backup. I wish this was some sort of standard between banks. But thankfully this is the biggest bank in the country, so their ATM is usually very close to you (there is no special hardware, it's an ordinary ATM - with just a menu option of entering the one-time code).