Market numbers highlight ATM trends

Smarter ATM strategies crafted from sophisticated data analysis mostly have to be tailored to individual credit unions. However, overall market data can still shed light.

One big trend as digital payments grow is for ATMs to be used less often but for larger withdrawal amounts, notes Terry Pierce, director of ATM product management for CUES Supplier member CO-OP Financial Services, Rancho Cucamonga, California. “The shift to mobile payments has cut into ATM volume,” she reports. COVID-19 also caused a decrease in ATM use, she observes, and an increase in use of video tellers as members looked for remotely delivered branch-level service. Transaction volume is starting to stabilize but is not yet at pre-pandemic levels, she observes.

And $20 bills are still the cash staple, but the trend is to dispense more denominations. “One reason people would go into a branch,” Pierce notes, “was to get cash in the denominations they wanted.”

ATMs are being undermined by technology that lets members do at home with their mobile device or desktop most of what they’d do at an ATM, agrees Jim Flannery, senior manager for Global Advisory Services at Diebold Nixdorf, North Canton, Ohio. Members can get cash back at retail points of sale using their credit union ATM card. The decline of ATMs can also be traced to digital banking’s continued march toward cashless, he speculates. When ATMs were introduced, he was an avid user. Now he can’t remember the last time he used one.

 

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