Changing habits and resilient business models are testing the place of cash payments and the utility of a shrinking ATM fleet in the Australian payments landscape.
Total ATM withdrawals fell 12 per cent to A$118 billion over the year to June 2020, RBA payments data released at the end of last week shows. This is still more than 10 per cent of all payments volume.
Over the month of June 2020, ATM withdrawals fell 18 per cent to $8.4 billion.
The second-quarter results for NASDAQ-listed Cardtronics (operator of the former Cashcard network among things) shows its ATM fleet in Australia and New Zealand shrunk by almost one-third over the year to 5166 machines.
Revenues in the June quarter for Cardtronics halved to $13 million compared with the second quarter of 2019.
Data from Next Payments shared with Banking Day shows the weekly withdrawal volumes on the Next ATM fleet have broadly recovered over July and early August after being smashed in April and May, a rebound that will in part reflect Next’s acquisition of new sites from both bank and other independent deployers.
In New Zealand, where the impact of the coronavirus pandemic is less muted than in Australia, Next’s volumes are tracking at levels above late 2019.
Next is also funding industry communications at the website cashwelcome.org, where you can even buy Love Cash clothing.