News

Aussie banker predicts disappearance of cash from bank branches

May 31, 2017

Cash is likely to disappear from bank branches in Australia in the not-so-distant future as consumers Down Under increasingly turn to digital channels for their banking transactions, according to a report by the Sydney Morning Herald.

Australian consumers are moving away from cash and checks at an accelerating pace; check use has fallen by more than half (56 percent) over the past five years, while cash withdrawals from ATMs have declined by nearly one-quarter (22 percent) within that time frame, the Herald said.

Conversely, payments via card and mobile have grown at double-digit rates. In 2016, card payments on cards rose 12.3 percent.

But on a positive note for ATM deployers, the removal of cash from branches will likely make the nation's ATM network all the more important.

Michael Baumann, general manager of everyday banking and payments at Commonwealth Bank of Australia, told a group of bankers at the Australian Retail Banking Summit in Sydney, "I could see absolutely that for security purposes but also because the demand is not there, that actually cash will disappear, or more [cash] will go into a deposit machine and ATM machine rather than actually doing it over the counter."