Take a look at the world's ATM placements and it doesn't take long to figure out that the United States has more than any. The ATM market exploded in the U.S. after 1996, when Visa and MasterCard lifted their surcharging bans, and that lift gave non-financial entities an incentive to enter the market.

Before Americans had time to blink, ATMs were popping up all over the place. No longer were consumers slaves to their financial institutions' locations. Now they could access money just about anywhere they pleased - the convenient store, hotel, liquor store, movie theater.

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That so-called "saturation" has "spoiled" the North American public and North American ISOs, said Madavi Mantha, a senior analyst with Boston-based Celent Communications LLC.

"We are spoiled in the U.S. and Canada by the concept of having ATMs readily available to people everywhere they go," Mantha said. "We take that for granted. But you don't have that kind of availability throughout the world," at least not at the moment.

Across the Atlantic, the United Kingdom is taking a page from North America's experience, said Ron Delnevo, chief executive officer of U.K.-based independent sales organization Bank Machine Ltd. Bank Machine, which operates more than 1,000 off-premise ATMs in Britain, was purchased by U.S-based ISO Cardtronics in April 2005 - a portfolio purchase that made Cardtronics the largest ISO in the world.

"Growth has been excellent in the U.K.," Delnevo wrote in an e-mailed response. "Between 1967 and 1998, banks only installed 10,000 off-branch ATMs. Since 1998, independents have installed 20,000."

TRM Corp., another U.S. ISO, also sees potential in the U.K. In September, TRM announced its expected $78-million purchase of Travelex UK Ltd.'s ATM division, which includes 1,100 ATMs.

"Surcharging," Delnevo added, "is what has powered up growth. Lack of it has held back growth in other countries. It is not complicated, (although) there are a number of other factors, e.g. security-related issues in France, banking rules in Germany relating to driving ATMs, etc., but such obstacles will ultimately be overcome if profit potential is present."

Growth in English-speaking countries has been noticeable, Mantha said, even if market variations exist. According to the Bank for International Settlements, from 1999 to 2003 the ratio ATMs per 1 million people in the U.S. jumped from 813 to 1,275. In Canada that ratio went from 877 in 1999 to 1,394 in 2003. And in the U.K., the number of ATMs per 1 million people from 1999 to 2003 increased from 468 to 783. (According to other sources, those figures are now closer to 1,351 per million in the U.S., 1,459 in Canada and 906 in the U.K.)

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"In Belgium, France, Germany the growth has been very slow growth, and it has to do with the characteristics of these markets - culture and regulation," Mantha said. "I think growth is very selected, and it depends on a number of factors. It's not an internationally known principal: What's worked here cannot be assumed to work there."

Tim Wildash, CEO of Australia-based Triton distributor ATM Solutions Australasia Pty Ltd., said English-speaking countries may be in the lead "because we relate to the USA situation much more readily."

However, Wildash added, Australian off-premise growth, similar to the U.S., is slowing down. "It is getting harder to find good locations." And that type of slow-down is leading deployers into other markets.

Show me the money

As Delnevo pointed out, the growth concept is simple from an ISO perspective - ISOs will go where surcharging is permitted.

"The U.S., Canada and the U.K.: That's really where we've seen significant growth, and those also are the three countries where surcharging is allowed," Mantha said. "Surcharging has driven commercial business," and it explains why independents are looking to Mexico, where surcharging has been allowed since June of this year.

"But," Mantha added, "once you peel beneath the details, it's not a slam dunk for a third-party to enter those markets."

Jorge Fernandez, founder and former president of Miami-based Capture Systems LLC and president of Level Four Americas LLC, has for a number of years been a proponent of off-premise growth throughout the world. He said he sees potential and pitfalls for U.S. companies interested in entering new markets. (Read also, Is the world ready for off-premise ATMs?)

The successes experienced in Canada and the U.K., for instance, won't be mirrored in other European countries and Latin America.

"I see the big U.S. players colonizing the world (and) I am not sure if this is good or bad yet," he said. "Time will tell. If they go in as typical American companies that �colonize,' I predict they will be duly disappointed. If they let these companies run as local organizations with their own flavors and catering to the given market, they will have a better chance to succeed."

Sam Ditzion, president and CEO of Boston-based Tremont Capital Group, a firm that specializes in providing merger and acquisition advisory services to the ATM and related industries, said U.S. companies are using acquisitions as a way to gain market presence and acceptance.

What's Important English-speaking countries lead in off-premise placements. Surcharging is a catalyst for off-premise growth, but varying regulations have stunted growth in some places.   FIs throughout the world are interested in providing consumers with more convenient access to ATMs.

Also, coming from a country that operates one-third of the world's ATMs (according to the Nilson Report) is an advantage, Ditzion said. "Several U.S. deployers are attempting to leverage their years of domestic experience to set up shop operations overseas, with the hope that they will have a competitive edge."

Merging accounts

Placement agreements or acquisitions will likely hold the answer for American companies and off-premise growth throughout the rest of the world, said Mantha and Wildash.

In countries where FIs want to expand their footprints, branding and outsourcing deals like the ones signed between ISOs and FIs in the States might have potential, Mantha said.

"I think what is interesting about Cardtronics in the U.K. is whether they will bring their surcharge market to the U.K.," where non-profit building societies do not surcharge, she said. "Banks in the U.K. would like to bring off-premise locations to their customers, so do they contract with a company like Cardtronics to provide surcharge-free (branded) ATMs?

Only time will tell.

Wildash sees ISO growth, especially in the U.K., from a different perspective. Acquisitions, Wildash said, have given small players like Bank Machine some capital backing, allowing them to increase off-premise presence more readily.

"Prior to mergers the small independents would have been very low on cash and would not have been able to deploy ATMs," he said. "When you spend six hours per day looking for money and looking after your existing fleet, it is hard to get the energy and resources to keep deploying."