News

Sparebank1 Nord-Norge installs world's northernmost ATM

For the only financial services provider on Norway's remote Spitzbergen Island, cash recycling was the obvious way to go.

September 22, 2014

The Norwegian city of Longyearbyen on the island of Spitzbergen is the northernmost permanently populated place on earth. It boasts 2,100 year-round residents, 100,000 annual tourists and one ATM.

“It is extremely important for the only cash system in the town to be highly available and reliable,” said Sparebank1 Nord-Norge branch manager Trond Hellstad.

The machine is particularly important for supplying cash to the summer tourists who spend money in the town’s stores and restaurants. Local businesses return the notes and coins to the system, which validates them and makes them available again for withdrawal.

Based on its successful implementation of Wincor Nixdorf Cineo cash recycling systems at other Branches in Norway, the FI decided to deploy the system on Spitzbergen too, a Wincor press release said. The bank's C4060 machine was installed in May to handle note and coin deposit and dispensing transactions.

Given the remote location of the Sparebank1 Nord-Norge branch, ATM faults are not an option, the release said. Any service technician needed would have to be flown in, but the plane from Norway comes just three times a week. So the bank's four employees take a do-it-yourself approach as a rule.

“Here, we are used to solving problems ourselves,” Hellstad said. With some support by phone from Wincor Nixdorf, this has worked out so far.