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Bank Machine said its ATMs have issued 1 million 5-pound banknotes

The company plans to deploy 300 ATMs that only issue the 5-pound banknote by the end of March.

February 7, 2011

Bank Machine Ltd., the United Kingdom-based ATM independent operator, today announced that its ATMs have dispensed 1 million 5-pound British banknotes since the first of the year.

Bank Machine, a subsidiary of Cardtronics Inc., also announced that last week it deployed in Forfar, Scotland, its 200th ATM that only issues the 5-pound banknote. The company, which has its headquarters in Hatfield, Hertfordshire, plans to deploy 300 ATMs that only issue the 5-pound banknote by the end of March. The free-to-use machines are available throughout the United Kingdom.

In December 2009, the Bank of England, the central bank of the United Kingdom, urged the country's ATM operators to increase the availability of the 5-pound note (U.S. $8.04) in their machines, although the number of 5-pound notes had been increasing slightly since 2007. Bank Machine deployed its first 5-pound-only ATM in the summer of 2008 in East London's Bethnal Green.

During an interview last June, Ron Delnevo, managing director of Bank Machine, said there is pent-up demand for 5-pound banknotes because most ATMs issue only the 20-pound banknote (U.S. $32.18) and sometimes the 10-pound banknote (U.S.$16.09).

Andrew Bailey, Bank of England's chief cashier, said he was pleased that the bank's initiative to increase circulation of the 5-pound banknote was working.

"The fact that 1 million notes have been issued in January from ATMs that only issue 5-pound notes demonstrates the public wants fivers," he said. "ATMs are the front line of cash provision to the public."

The dramatic increase in 5-pound banknotes is remarkable because the fiver was almost extinct two years ago, Delnevo said.

"The only specimens that could be found were limp and lifeless. Our 'Save Our Fivers' campaign has breathed life back into them, and resuscitated a fondness for fivers as the most practical notes," he added.

Bank Machine owns and operates 3,000 ATMs throughout the U.K. Cardtronics, the world's largest nonbank ATM operator, is based in Houston.