News

1st ATMIA conference in Africa a success

April 7, 2004

CAPE TOWN, South Africa - Delegates from Egypt, Gabon, Uganda, Nigeria, Kenya, Mauritius, Botswana, Malawi, Mozambique, Zambia, Zimbabwe, South Africa and Namibia attended "ATMs in Africa," the ATM Industry Association's first African conference and exhibition on March 25-26.

In all, just under 150 delegates attended ATMIA's first African event, with more than one third of them bankers and independent deployers.

A "live" ATM installed by NCR just outside the exhibition hall was popular with staff working at the Waterfront's BMW Conference Center, the event venue. Sixty transactions were performed on the machine in its temporary location during the two-day event.

In his opening address, Cas Coovadia, general manager of the Banking Council of South Africa, invited the international audience to enjoy the hospitality of South Africa while issuing a warning in his message that the country's new Financial Services Charter will require a restructuring to make banking services available to the broad South African population, the majority of whom are unbanked.

John Hardy, chief executive of Link Interchange Network in the United Kingdom, one of the world's busiest ATM network processors, spoke in his keynote address of the evolutionary stages ATM networks tend to go through as they get bigger and the market matures.

In Hardy's view, this evolution results in a move toward ATM "pooling" -- a practice where the network itself optimizes placements of ATMs on a strictly economic basis according to total transaction levels in a given area.

Dominic Hirsch, managing director of London-based ATM research firm Retail Banking Research, predicted a growth rate above the world average for ATM installations in the Middle East and Africa, setting the tone for a positive message about ATMs in Africa that was maintained throughout the two-day event.

Pravesh Mahadeo, head of Absa Bank's self-service channel, asked the audience to think about reaching the unbanked through ATMs, one of the mega-themes of the conference. One idea he shared was to provide free pre-paid water through ATM services. His presentation outlined the successes of pre-paid top-ups on Absa ATMs in South Africa.

Sithembiso Sibiya, area manager, Kwazulu Natal Service Channel, First National Bank, showed in a graphic case study that reaching the unbanked through mobile banks, mini ATMs and mobile ATMs was already happening in remote and rural areas of the country.

Patrick Cunningham, chief executive of the South African Fraud Prevention Services, unveiled a new database design for the Crime Information System of the Global ATM Security Alliance.

Lyle Elias, executive director of Value Payment Network (USA) and chairman of ATMIA, looked at the rise of various payment mechanisms around the world and predicted a strong long-term future for the ATM and the "stellar-performing" debit card in a payment universe of ever-widening choices.

Barry Ryan, managing director of Fintech International, looked at switch developments in Sub-Saharan countries, showing that switches and super-switches are coming together to form the backbone of the ATM industry throughout southern and eastern Africa.

CR2 revealed how there are many interesting cross-overs between the retail and financial services sectors in the West, which conference chairman Mike Lee of ATMIA characterized in his closing remarks as "bank the shop and shop the bank."

Mark Mills, CEO of Cardpoint (United Kingdom), and Steve Kark, managing director of ATM Solutions (South Africa), gave personal testimonies of how they built up their independent ATM business models and estates.

Gboyega Akinyemi, manager of Electronic Banking, Gulf Bank of Nigeria, in looking at e-money and cash in Nigeria, with its population of 120 million, re-affirmed  that in Africa cash is still king and will be for the foreseeable future.

Delegate evaluation forms returned to ATMIA at the end of "ATMs in Africa" showed high approval levels for this first-time event.

For more information on future events, contact Mike Lee at +27-21-9750752, mike@atmia.com or Amanda Hardy at +44-(0)207-6035467, amanda@atmiaconferences.com

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ATM Industry Association (ATMIA)

The ATM Industry Association, founded in 1997, is a global non-profit trade association with over 10,500 members in 65 countries. The membership base covers the full range of this worldwide industry comprising over 2.2 million installed ATMs.

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