Payments company Cuscal has embarked on an upgrade of its network of 3200 rediATMs to make them compatible with Windows 7, meet the EMV chip standard and provide financial institutions using the network with a range of new functions.Cuscal completed a pilot of the project in March and has already converted 100 machines. It expects to have the project finished by June or July next year.One obvious question is whether Cuscal will get a return on its investment. Cash use is in decline, relative to other payment types, and ATM use is also falling. In recent years, some ATM companies supplying the pub, club and convenience store market have struggled.Cuscal's head of ATMs and acquiring, Colin Sultana, said Reserve Bank figures showed a five per cent annual fall in ATM transaction volumes and a two per cent annual decline in the value of cash withdrawals.However, consumers make more than 60 million ATM withdrawals a month and they still see ATMs as an important part of the service their financial institutions provides.One of the enhancements that Cuscal is making to its fleet is a facility that changes the screen of the terminal to the brand of the consumer's financial institution during the transaction. This facility will be available to all the network's users if they choose to deploy it.Sultana said Cuscal would pilot an enhancement to this "home screen" feature later this year, which will allow financial institutions to customize messages and market to the consumer while they are transacting.Cuscal's network is second to Commonwealth Bank's in size. It is made up of around 900 machines owned by Cuscal, 1400 owned by National Australia Bank, 700 owned by Bank of Queensland and the rest owned by 19 other institutions. There are 120 network users.The network operates on a "no-compete" basis, which means, for example, that a credit union customer using a NAB rediATM will not receive marketing material from NAB.Sultana said one source of growth for Cuscal was financial institutions deciding they no longer wanted to go it alone in a contracting ATM market. The Cuscal network has added two new users in the past 18 months.Another source of growth is servicing the convenience market. Sultana said: "Our network is high-street and financial institution specific, and our strategy is to continue to provide a service that financial institutions can offer their customers."However, we bank some clients who operate machines in the convenience market and we see potential to do more of that."Another source of growth is China UnionPay. Earlier this year Cuscal signed an ATM access agreement with UnionPay, which has four billion cards on issue.The agreement means that UnionPay's cardholders have access to the rediATM network. Many of the 700,000 Chinese visitors to Australia each year are UnionPay cardholders.Later this year Cuscal will trial further enhancements to its ATMs. For machines in branches it plans to have upgraded cheque and cash deposit facilities.Sultana said his team was also looking at contactless and cardless transactions. He said that, due to the