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An ATM deployment that Euronet Services Inc. coordinated for the Dillard's department store chain marked a significant "first" for both companies. Euronet, based in Leawood, Kan., operates the largest independent ATM network in Europe, with more than 2,000 off-premise machines in Croatia, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Hungary, Poland and the U.K. The Dillard's deal, involving about 340 ATMs in 29 states, is Euronet's biggest to date in the U.S. "It was our first foray into retail (in the U.S.). Before, our primary focus was on financial institutions," said Mark Stone, Euronet's U.S. sales director. Euronet hopes to acquire more retail accounts, preferably large national ones. "We don't want to try to peel off two or three c-store deals at a time. There's enough other people out there that can handle those," Stone said. Dillard's had never had ATMs in its stores before. David Helm, assistant treasurer of the Little Rock, Ark.-based chain, said that installing ATMs is part of an overall move toward debit and other card-based services. "The ATMs are just part of a total package of services we want to offer our customers with debit cards." While most merchants in the malls where Dillard's stores are located will accept plastic, vendors in the food court generally will not. "The customer needs to get $20 from the ATM so they can go to the food court," Helm said. Dillard's is also installing PIN pads at the checkout terminals in its stores in hopes of converting customers from offline, signature-based transactions to the more economical online, PIN-based debit. Euronet designed and implemented the installation for Dillard's, including obtaining hardware from Dillard's manufacturer of choice, Triton. The rollout began just after Labor Day and was completed in time for the 1999 holiday shopping season. After researching ATM installation for about a year, Helm said Dillard's came up with a short list of contenders. One reason for selecting Euronet was proximity. Euronet's software subsidiary, Arksys, is based in Little Rock. "It's just a lot easier to deal with someone down the street," Helm said, adding that Dillard's also "wanted to go with a company that had familiarity with the business and could go nationwide." The turnkey nature of Euronet's program also appealed to Dillard's, Helm said. "It was a big enough project as it was. I don't think we could have done it with multiple providers." In a money-saving move that's more common among smaller retailers, Dillard's does its own cash replenishment. "It works perfectly for them. They circulate their in-store cash through the machines," Stone said. ATM transactions, about 200,000 a month, are processed through Euronet's Dash Network. Euronet helped establish the regional network in 1996 and acquired full ownership last August. Based in Arkansas, Dash provides transaction switching, ATM and debit card services to financial institutions in Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana and Oklahoma. It's also part of a back-up computer center for Euronet's European operations. Dash is "kind of a sleeper," Stone said. "We offer a level of service and pricing that enable Dash to stay competitive in the market." Dash wants to compete with technology rather than pricing, Stone said. So the network is developing applications to facilitate the new transactions that are beginning to invade the ATM market with the advent of Internet enabled machines. "We see a lot of the technology we're developing as a unique added value we're going to provide. We hope people will choose Dash because of that instead of because we're a penny less per transaction," Stone said. One of the biggest surprises, Helm said, is that ATM usage doesn't necessarily match up with overall store sales. One of Dillard's top-five stores, which has two ATMs, has the lowest ATM transaction volumes.