News

No 'easy money' for some Hollanders as village ATMs shut down

March 18, 2013

Quick and easy access to cash is not to be taken for granted these days in the Netherlands. Around the country, ATMs and bank branches have been vanishing from the streetscape — to the tune of 1,000 each over the past five years.

Increasingly, citizens must travel to neighboring villages to obtain cash, a development that especially troubles organizations that represent the elderly, said a report by Dutch News.

Even more worrisome, the closures aren't finished. To date, some 30 percent of bank branches in the Netherlands have been shuttered according to information from RBR and the Dutch central bank. Now Utrecht-based Rabobank, one of the world's top 30 FIs, has said it will shut half of its branches.

In Western Europe, the average ratio of ATMs to residents is 780 per million; in the Netherlands, it's fallen to 450 per million. A Brinks spokesperson told Dutch News that the high cost of ATM management was driving the closures.

Read more about trends and statistics.