Financial inclusion is vital for socio-economic development, yet the marginalized struggle to access secure banking services. Despite advances like digital payments, many still rely on insecure methods, such as cash withdrawal at cyber cafes, increasing vulnerability to fraud. To address this, we developed an ATM training application using Augmented Reality (AR) to provide realistic, hands-on experience with virtual ATMs, promoting self-reliance. Logistic regression analysis on 22 participants for AR-based ATMs revealed that 68% were likely to use real-world ATMs, with 80% median confidence and 82% analysis accuracy for the entire dataset. 85% of the participants were 55–65, while 20% were 70–80, contributing to confidence variation with a standard deviation of 34.8%. For another 10 participants, a Repeated Measures ANOVA for the time taken and ATM confidence pre- and post-training yielded validity of significant influence of training with 99.05% (p-value of 0.95) significance for transaction time and a high percentage (zero p-value) for ATM confidence. The TAM results revealed perceived usefulness scores ranging from 5.5 to 6.13, showcasing the system as applicable with moderate variability, and perceived ease of use scores ranging from 5.625 to 6.125, with a relatively positive response towards ease of use, with less variability. The results show that AR-based training applications can address technical barriers to self-service infrastructure, enhancing user confidence in practical skills for real-world interactions.