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Kinective improves cash ecosystem through ESQ acquisition

With the rising cost of cash and the overall flatline of cash usage, it's more important than ever for banks to optimize cash management from ATM tools to optimizing cash handling and more. That's what Kinective aims to achieve through its acquisition of ESQ

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September 30, 2025 by Bradley Cooper — Editor, ATM Marketplace & Food Truck Operator

With the rising cost of cash and the overall flatline of cash usage, it's more important than ever for banks to optimize their cash management from ATM tools to optimizing cash handling and more. Vendors are rising to the challenge by crafting cash ecosystem solutions, such as through Kinective's recent acquisition of ESQ Data Solutions.

Kinective is a banking operations platform provider and will add ESQ's device management, analytics, reporting and cash optimization tools into its larger Banking Operations Platform to create a better cash ecosystem.

"We're now the only platform that unifies every critical operational touchpoint, from the moment cash enters a branch teller recycler to when a customer withdraws funds from an ATM many miles away. For our 4,000-plus financial institution customers, this means transforming from reactive operations management to predictive intelligence — seeing problems before they impact customers and optimizing performance across the entire cash ecosystem from a single command center," Stephen Baker, CEO of Kinective, said in a press release.

To learn more about how the acquisition will impact the ATM and banking space, ATM Marketplace reached out to Tarun Dass, head of marketing at ESQ Data Solutions, and Michael Ball, EVP of marketing at Kinective in an email interview.

Q. What are the primary services ESQ provides?

Dass and Ball: ESQ Data Solutions has long been a trusted partner to the world's largest banks, managed service providers, and financial institutions. Our core expertise lies in enterprise-grade ATM and self-service device management solutions that ensure uptime, efficiency, and security across complex networks. Through platforms like OperationsBridge, DataEdge and CashOptimizer, ESQ provides:

• Real-time device monitoring and management across ATMs, kiosks, ITMs and POS devices.
• Proactive alerts and automated recovery, minimizing downtime and service disruptions.
• Advanced data analytics and reporting, transforming raw operational data into actionable insights.
• Cash optimization, helping institutions balance availability with reduced idle cash.

With nearly one million devices monitored globally, ESQ empowers institutions to maximize device availability, optimize operations, and deliver better banking experiences.

Q. How are these services innovative in the ATM space?

Dass and Ball: The ATM ecosystem generates massive amounts of data — but much of it goes unused. ESQ bridges that gap by turning ATM data into predictive intelligence. Innovations include:

• Processing over 1,000 real-time data points per minute and managing up to 2,900 transactions per second on peak days.
• Leveraging AI-powered anomaly detection to prevent issues before they disrupt services.
• Providing a single, unified dashboard for ATM and cash ecosystem visibility, replacing fragmented, siloed systems.
• Enabling financial institutions to move from reactive monitoring to predictive operations, dramatically reducing downtime and operational costs.

In effect, ESQ transforms the ATM from a cost sink into a strategic data asset that improves customer experience and drives profitability.

Q. How does ESQ align strategically with Kinective?

Dass and Ball: Kinective is the leading banking operations platform provider, simplifying the technology that financial institutions need to compete, thrive, and better serve their communities. By acquiring ESQ, Kinective extends its platform — which already unifies branch automation, digital connectivity, document workflows and data intelligence — to include complete cash ecosystem management.

Strategically, this alignment creates the industry's first unified command center spanning every operational touch point — from teller cash recyclers inside branches to ATMs and ITMs across geographies, to digital channels. Together, ESQ and Kinective bring scale, innovation, and integration that the industry has never seen before.

Q. How will ESQ's solutions integrate with Kinective?

Dass and Ball: ESQ's enterprise-scale monitoring and analytics capabilities are being seamlessly integrated into Kinective's Banking Operations Platform. This means:

• A 360-degree view of cash operations, creating the industry's first unified command center.
• Combining ESQ's real-time device intelligence with Kinective's branch and workflow automation capabilities, ensuring full operational visibility from branch to ATM to digital channels.
• Predictive analytics that anticipate issues and optimize performance across all cash touch points.
• Scalable, cloud-ready solutions that allow financial institutions to evolve from on-premise to hybrid to SaaS environments at their own pace.

For customers, this integration delivers not just a technology upgrade, but a future-proof strategy for operational excellence.

Q. What does this mean for the ATM industry?

Dass and Ball: For too long, the ATM industry has been constrained by fragmented systems — one tool for cash forecasting, another for device monitoring, and yet another for service management. This acquisition changes everything. With ESQ and Kinective combined, financial institutions can:

• Unlock 95%-plus ATM availability powered by AI-driven foresight.
• Reduce operational costs by up to 15% through streamlined monitoring and optimization.
• Unlock the ability to treat ATMs not just as endpoints, but as part of an integrated cash ecosystem that drives customer satisfaction and loyalty.

Simply put, this partnership redefines the role of ATMs in modern banking — making them more resilient, more efficient, and more valuable than ever.

Q. What does this mean for the banking industry as a whole?

Dass and Ball: This acquisition is a watershed moment for banking operations. Financial institutions worldwide are under pressure to reduce costs, improve efficiency, and elevate customer experience. By uniting Kinective's operational expertise with ESQ's ATM and cash ecosystem mastery, banks now gain:

• One platform for all operations — from branch to digital to cash devices.
• The ability to shift from fragmented, reactive management to predictive, data-driven intelligence.
• Improved customer satisfaction, by ensuring cash and services are always available.
• Future-proof flexibility with cloud-ready, scalable solutions that evolve with business needs.

Cash management remains one of the largest operational expenses for banks and credit unions. With the acquisition of ESQ, Kinective is able to eliminate operational blind spots, break down data silos between channels and enable seamless coordination across all banking operations. Institutions can now correlate cash positions with branch traffic patterns, align staffing with device availability needs and overall, maximize efficiency across every channel. For the industry, this means we're entering a new era of integrated, intelligent banking operations — a game-changer in how institutions compete and serve their communities.

About Bradley Cooper

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Bradley Cooper is the editor of ATM Marketplace and Food Truck Operator. He was previously the editor of Digital Signage Today. His background is in information technology, advertising, and writing.

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