Multiple owners for ATMs

With iCash Payments generating some investor attention on the ASX there are now two listed companies in the specialist segment of owning and operating automatic teller machines. Customers Limited is the second.

There are two other non-bank owners of ATM fleets left. One is Cashcard, owned by First Data, and which has been in the industry for years. The second is Banktech, perhaps the only independent left after Customers and Cashcard bought up the rest of the lesser suppliers over the course of the decade.

Market share in the ATM sector in Australia is tricky to confirm. In short, the number of ATMs owned by those who claim to own ATMs appears to exceed the known number of ATMs by a wide margin.

The Australian Payments Clearing Association counted 27,100 ATMs in Australia at June 2009.

The Australian Prudential Regulation Authority, in its annual publication of "points of presence" listed 20,900 ATM sites controlled by banks, building societies and credit unions at June 2009. APRA published this report yesterday.

In some cases non-banks will own bank-branded ATMs. Both First Data and Customers Limited have ATMs in this category for BankWest, Bank of Queensland, St George Bank and others.

That leaves 6200 ATMs placed somewhere else, and owned by one of the non-bank entities (Banktech, Customers, iCash and First Data).

Customers Limited, in an investor presentation last month, said it owned and operated around 5500 ATMs in Australia.

Research by Edgar Dunn, a consultancy, and cited by Customers, suggests First Data has a similar number of ATMs (and this is consistent with past public data on this point).

The same Edgar Dunn research suggests Banktech has around 1000 ATMs.

iCash, making use of the same Edgar Dunn research in its own investor presentation last month, refers to its percentage of the Australian market (which is around that of Banktech). Interestingly iCash opted not to state precisely how many ATMs it currently owns and operates.