Westpac customers will soon be able to access Armaguard’s fleet of automated tellers for free under a new access deal struck by the parties. The agreement, announced on Monday, will give Westpac accountholders access to Armaguard’s 1700 atmx branded machines, including 500 in rural and remote parts of the country. Westpac’s head of consumer and business banking Chris de Bruin said the new arrangement supported the bank’s strategy of widening the options for customers to do their banking. “While the way Australians are banking is changing, access to cash remains important for some consumers,” he said. “Through our agreement with Armaguard, we’re providing a significant increase in the number of locations where our customers can withdraw cash fee free and check their balances to help them stay in control of their spending, including in locations where we do not have a physical presence.” The deal diversifies Westpac’s ATM provisioning arrangements following the decision in 2019 to offload 750 offsite machines to Prosegur for around A$25 million. The agreement between the bank and Armaguard comes at a sensitive moment in the local cash logistics market with the ACCC due next month to decide whether a proposed merger of Armaguard and Prosegur can proceed. In a recent submission to the ACCC’s public inquiry, Westpac raised concerns about the merger proceeding, particularly in relation to the national cash-in- transit market, which is dominated by Armaguard and Prosegur. Earlier this year Armaguard and Prosegur provided the ACCC with a proposed undertaking to preserve service levels and pricing outcomes in the cash logistics industry. However, the wording of the proposed undertaking remains an issue of concern for Westpac and other banks such as Bendigo and Adelaide Bank. “We have reviewed the undertaking and, although it seeks to deal with a lot of the main issues that might arise if the merger proceeds, there is still a lack of clarity around some key issues,” Westpac tells the ACCC in a submission filed on 5 April. “The commitments in relation to service offering are vague and do not provide certainty in relation to some of the more specific service concerns that Westpac has which we have previously discussed with you, for example frequency of delivery. “In addition, without any defined list of cash point locations the nature of the geographic coverage being offered is unclear.”