Cardtronics signs bank-branding deal with PNC Bank

Cardtronics Inc. today announced that it has signed a major ATM-branding agreement, ending a long drought in a once lucrative market for the Houston-based ATM independent sales organization.

Cardtronics reached a multi-year deal with PNC Bank, a Pittsburgh-based financial institution, which is putting its corporate logo on 230 Cardtronics-owned ATMs deployed in Hess Express convenience stores throughout Florida, Joel Antonini, a Cardtronics spokesperson, tells ATMmarketplace. Hess Express, which is owned by New York-based Hess Corp., sells gasoline, food, magazines and newspapers. Hess Express owns 1,300 stores from Massachusetts to Florida.

Cardtronics has similar contracts in the Sunshine state with Citibank and JPMorgan Chase & Co. New York-based Citibank signed a branding agreement with Cardtronics for machines deployed in 7-Eleven Stores. And Chase, also based in New York, signed a contract with Cardtronics for ATMs deployed in Walgreens drugstores.

Those agreements, however, were signed before the recession. Chris Brewster, Cardtronics chief financial officer, complained to analysts during quarterly conference calls branding agreements had just about disappeared because of the financial troubles many banks faced.

"This is the first branding agreement we have announced through a press release in sometime," Antonini said. "When the economy slowed down, it took much longer to sign branding agreements. This is a large agreement to kick things off."

Cardtronics deployed cash-only dispensing ATMs in Hess Express stores. PNC cardholders can withdraw cash surcharge free from the machines and check account balances. Cardholders from other banks will have to pay a surcharge fee, says Antonini, who did not disclose the fee amount.