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Cash still king, agree ATMIA attendees

At 'Optimising European ATMs,' the recent ATM Industry Association conference in Budapest, Hungary, a key message was the staying power of currency and the resulting demand for more ATMs in convenience locations.

October 14, 2002

BUDAPEST, Hungary -- The resurgent theme of the ATM Industry Association's recent conference, "Optimising European ATMs," was the power, ubiquity and convenience of cash.

Many speakers and attendees celebrated currency's staying power and the resulting demand for more ATMs in more convenient locations.

Budapest, Hungary was a picturesque setting for the ATMIA's "Optimising European ATMs."

Gunnar Enroth, strategic development director of Banqit, a Swedish ATM manufacturer, said that cash volume is growing around the world as a percentage of Gross National Product. "Cash will continue to be king," he said.

However, he said, cash has a cost. According to him, there is an average annual cost of about $100 per person for moving, counting and securing currency; retailers and banks bear most of this expense. 

James Trocmé, Diebold's EMEA director of product marketing and management, agreed that people around the world are still strongly attached to cash, largely because of its universal acceptance and consumers' ingrained habits.

"Cash is all about habit, ever since seashells and salt," he said. "It's anonymous and tangible. It is a strange relationship we have with our money."

Dominic Hirsch, managing director of Retail Banking Research, echoed Trocmé's view of cash's continued popularity.

"Contrary to popular belief, the amount of cash in circulation is not declining rapidly at the expense of other forms of payments. The amount of cash in circulation in most developed countries is staying roughly constant, or only declining very slowly," Hirsch said. "The need for cash and ATMs will therefore remain strong for the foreseeable future."

Banqit's Gunnar Enroth was a panel member at "Optimising European ATMs" in Budapest, Hungary.

Another lesson that was reiterated again and again during the conference: Don't rely on global trends to dictate a local or regional market strategy. This is an obvious point, but one that is especially important for U.S. companies interested in entering foreign markets with ATMs and related services.

Burak Gocer of Turkey's Garanti Bank illustrated the effects of a troubled economy and tight competition in his country, where banks are closing branches. While the big banks are growing their card bases and their ATM fleets, the overall Turkish ATM footprint is shrinking. Fortunately, he said, surcharging has begun, which may spur more ATM growth.

Beyond their optimistic forecasts for cash and their recognition of the importance of local/regional issues, the opinions of those in the global ATM industry varied almost as much as their different cultures.

Taking a diverse direction

The audience was the most international group yet at an ATMIA event, representing 24 countries: Denmark, Yugoslavia, Slovak Republic, Serbia, Ukraine, Russia, Sweden, Portugal, Belgium, Poland, Switzerland, Korea, the Netherlands, Finland, Lithuania, Nigeria, Norway, France, Turkey, South Africa, Scotland, Hungary, the UK and the U.S.

Tom Harper, president of NetWorld Alliance, shared a stage with fellow American, Peter Kulik of KLCI Research, and two Europeans, Banqit's Entroth and Jim Tomaney of ACI Worldwide's EMEA division. While the panel topic sounded simple enough -- "What is the future of the ATM industry?" -- a sometimes-charged debate showed there were few simple answers.

For instance, a discussion of biometrics highlighted the importance of cultural perspective. In panelist Entroth's opinion, biometrics won't work in some countries because, he said, "People won't want to touch something everyone else has touched."

Harper tried to square that with the reality that people already touch ATM keys, door handles and other "public" objects, but apparently not all cultural habits can be explained away so easily.
 
An audience member chimed in that, in his country, people would cut off fingers and gouge out eyes to steal money through ATMs. Tom Cruise's gruesome surgery in the movie "Minority Report," in which his eyes are replaced with those of a donor to conceal his identity from omnipresent biometric cameras in a city of the future, leapt to mind.

The panel did agree on one thing -- the fusion of mobile technology and the ATM. Because of the widespread use of wireless around the world, the confluence of cell phones and ATMs is already underway, according to the panelists.

The author, Tom Harper, is president of NetWorld Alliance. He began managing an ATM supply division for NetWorld predecessor WaterMark Group in 1997. He and WaterMark CEO Alan Fryrear created ATMmagazine.com in 1998, with the original intent of gaining exposure for the company's supply offerings. However, the site soon became a focus for WaterMark and took on a life of its own. It was relaunched as ATMmarketplace in 2000.
 
Tom is a co-founder of the ATM Industry Association, and sits on ATMIA's executive, international and North American boards. He is also a co-founder of the ATM Advertising Council and currently serves on its executive board as second vice president. He is a member of the executive board of the Kiosks.org Association.

Included In This Story

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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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