Cardtronics Expands CU Footprint Again

HOUSTON – Cardtronics Inc. said yesterday it signed a deal to co-brand nine ATMs with State Employees CU of Florida in the Tallahassee area, the company’s first co-branding deal with a credit union. The deal comes a week after Cardtronics announced it is taking over operation of 5,500 ATMs in 7-Eleven convenience stores, a major contact point for the credit union-owned CO-OP Network and Financial Services Centers Cooperative shared branching network. It also positions Cardtronics as a competitor in some markets with the CO-OP. Cardtronics has been striking co-branding deals with several major banks over the past few years, including JP Morgan Chase, Wachovia and Sovereign Bank which offers the banks customers surcharge-free access to Cardtronics machines in selected locations. The SECU deal will co-brand Cardtronics ATMs in Walgreen’s stores in Leon County, home of the $250 million credit union. Each of the nine machines will be equipped with the SECU logo and SECU transaction screens. Other co-branding deals with credit unions are in the works, according to Cardtronics. “We’ve got a couple more credit unions we’re going to announce, but we’re not quite ready yet,” Joel Antonini, a Cardtronics spokesman, told The Credit Union Journal yesterday. Over the past two years, Cardtronics has not only established itself as the dominant independent operator of ATMs, but a critical electronic funds transfer services for credit unions. During that time, the company signed deals with the Credit Union 24 EFT network to provide access to its credit unions, and acquired the surcharge-free Allpoint network, which provides access to hundreds of credit unions. The 7-Eleven deal will give it direct access to The CO-OP Network. And next month, 7-Eleven will connect almost 2,000 of its ATMs, all Vcom self-service kiosks, to FSCC.