A surprisingly large delegation of mainstream international bank personnel, including staff from Barclays, HSBC, The First National Bank of South Africa and the Ukrainian Bank Nadra, joined independent ATM operators at last week's ATM Industry Association conference "Optimising ATMs in Britain and Europe."
ATMIA International Director Michael Lee said, "With representatives from 17 financial institutions in attendance this year, it became clear we need to embrace the wider needs of bankers and even card operators such as Visa and MasterCard."
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Following the first day's keynote address, "UK ATMs: Lessons from 2000-2001," it became clear that the banking sector was taken by surprise at the readiness of the British public to accept surcharging, and also in the resulting and continuing expansion in the number of ATMs now found throughout the UK.
When presenter George Ogden, currently market development manager for S2 Systems but with a background of 14 years service with the Bank of Scotland, referred to the public's use of surcharging ATMs as a "distressed purchase," he crystallized the resentment felt by some in the banking industry.
The independent operators, in turn, justified their existence by reeling off transaction figures that surprised many visitors. According to Peter Morrill of Atmos, there are now 34,000 ATMs in the UK, 15,000 of them operated by ISOs. Vince Robson of Moneybox said his company's network of machines tallied one million transactions in August.
Looking back on the two days of Europe's first ATMIA conference, Lee said, "I am left in no doubt that this is a time of change and growth in the ATM industry - even experts in the USA are saying the market is far from saturation. We have established a European forum for everyone in the ATM industry, including the banks, and at future events we will ensure that anyone who has an impact on the industry will be invited to join us to speak about the big picture."
"The banks appear to have been taken by surprise by the way in which our members are confidently going ahead, installing surcharging ATMs, even when they are within walking distance of free bank machines. The time for surcharging has arrived both in the UK and, when the market is more open, in Europe too," Lee added. "I think the banks have a dilemma and, if we can do anything to assist them, we will. I can see that we, the ATMIA, have a role to play in educating the public that ATMs are expensive pieces of equipment and, if they want the banks to invest further, they need to understand that risk requires a reward."
Planning for the next European conference, to be held in Hungary, is already under way.
