Bendigo cherry picks Customer ATMs

Bendigo and Adelaide Bank will select 500 or so of the existing automatic teller machine fleet of its associate Customers Limited and apply the bank's branding. Customers disclosed the plan in an announcement to the Australian Securities Exchange yesterday.

Customers Ltd will lose the convenience fee that Bendigo and Adelaide customers would otherwise have paid to use the machines but will pick up what the announcement refers to as a "branding fee" and which, according to the announcement, will generate "revenue uplift" for the firm.

The bank must want to widen the network of its own brand of ATMs in order to more effectively service the cash needs of its customer base.

The deployment of branded ATM networks and arrangements with other networks of branded ATMs (but confusingly known as sub-networks in the industry jargon) may be becoming a point of difference for banks and independent ATM owners.

RBA data on ATM use for the month of March 2009 showed a shift toward ATMs owned by a customer's bank, following the introduction of the convenience fee.

Customers said Bendigo's branded ATM fleet may double to around 1150 terminals under the arrangement. Customers owns around 5500 ATM terminals in all.

The firm separately said it agreed terms with BP Australia to extend its contract to supply ATMs to the oil retailer's company-owned and operated sites to 2013 "on improved terms".