The CO-OP Network announced last week it has renewed an agreement with TRM Corp. to co-brand 5,500 TRM ATMs, which will continue to carry the CO-OP logo.
The deal comes after CO-OP decided just two months ago it was discontinuing those TRM machines because of low transaction volume. Stan Hollen, president of CO-OP, conceded the earlier decision to discontinue the TRM machines, but said they reached a new deal to continue those machines as part of the credit union-owned network. "We renegotiated the agreement," said Hollen.
"I want to commend our partners at TRM for working so diligently with CO-OP Network management," said Hollen. "Late last year CO-OP Network began an evaluation of our ATM branding associations, and the TRM leadership quickly stepped up to begin strengthening our (TRM) portfolio."
Dan Tierney, EVP for TRM, said the CO-OP deal should be mutually beneficial. "We provide CO-OP Network with leading pricing and service, and they provide us with increased ATM transaction volume and foot-traffic that translates into money in our merchants' registers," said Tierney.
After the February decision, the CO-OP added 5,400 co-branded ATMs in 7-Eleven convenience stores to the network.
The new deal does not affect the 1,000 TRM ATMs used and co-branded by CO-OP in The Pantry and Cumberland Farms convenience stores on the East Coast.
The TRM agreement comes a week after CO-OP agreed to acquire the Falls Church, Va.-based ENCORE EFT network, which is owned and operated for Washington, D.C.-area CUs. CO-OP is the largest CU-owned electronic funds transfer network and now has more than 25,000 co-branded ATMs on its network.
TRM, which acquired the eFunds' fleet of 14,200 ATMs last year, is in the process of transitioning from mainly a renter of telecopiers, to the second-largest independent operators of ATMs in the country, with more than 21,000 machines. The ATMs co-branded by CO-OP are among the machines once owned by eFunds.
Only Cardtronics, with more than 26,000 ATMs, boasts a larger fleet. Many of those ATMs are available to credit unions and their members over the Credit Union 24 and Allpoint ATM networks. Both the TRM and Cardtronics fleets are larger than the biggest bank-owned fleet of 15,000 ATMs owned and operated by Bank of America.
