Big Four banks to join forces and roll out one ATM network
The nation’s biggest banks are working together to roll out a singular ATM network that could deliver more machines to customers. VOTE, HAVE YOUR SAY
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Exclusive: Finding an ATM is set to get easier as the banks look to join forces to share machines.
A new deal involving three of the four big institutions — is expected to boost the number of ATMs available to Australians.
It would mirror arrangements in some countries overseas where ATMs don’t have specific bank branding.
The model has already proven successful in Sweden, Netherlands and Finland.
Banking sources have told News Corp three of the four major banks — National Australia Bank, Westpac and ANZ — have reignited discussions in recent months about the uniform approach.
But it’s understood the nation’s biggest bank, the Commonwealth Bank, is reluctant to join forces with the others because it doesn’t see the value in it, particularly since ATM fees were dumped.
The CBA was the first of the big four banks to ditch ATM charges.
The Australian payments industry self-regulatory body, the Australian Payments Network’s chief executive officer Andy White, said it would result in ATMs being better distributed nationally to reach more people.
“It could remove duplicate machines from areas that are overserviced and increase the provision in underserviced locations, so you end up with ATMs in the right places rather than too many in the one place,” he said.
Industry sources are unsure exactly when the singular network of ATMs would be rolled out but it’s expected to be in the next couple of years.
It would mean the banks no longer have their own branded ATMs and will jointly become part of a new bank-independent ATM brand.
Since the dumping of ATM fees in 2017 by the big four banks the machines are no longer the cash cows they once were.
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Customers were previously charged around $2 every time they made a withdrawal from a machine that was not in their own bank’s network.
Mr White also said the decline in cash usage has forced the banks to rethink their ATM strategy.
“Cash is declining considerably, cash payments halved from around 70 per cent of consumer payments in 2007 … to 37 per cent by 2016,” he said.
“Because people are using less cash to make payments it means they are using ATMs less.”
Strategic consultancy firm RFi’s managing director Alex Boorman said the cost of running ATMs “was more of a focus” for the big banks.
“This is part of the bigger issue of banks looking at more cost effective ways to provide ATM access to their customers,” he said.
Latest Reserve Bank of Australia data also found a majority (57 per cent) of ATMs were independently owned.
In 2013 in Sweden the company Bankomat took over the country’s then 2200 machines.
Customers could get access to all machines and their services regardless of which bank a customer was a member of.
The banking regulator’s latest Australian Prudential Regulation Authority statistics found the number of ATMs nationally in June 2019 fell by nine per cent to 11,560.