Citigroup Inc. customers soon will be able to make deposits at more of Cardtronics Inc.'s multifunction Vcom kiosks.
The New York banking company has been testing deposit acceptance at some of the Vcoms in California since January. J. Chris Brewster, Cardtronics' chief financial officer, told analysts Tuesday during a conference call to discuss the Houston automated teller machine operator's fourth-quarter results that Citi has decided to expand to program to all of the Vcom units, which are installed at 7-Eleven Inc. convenience stores.
"Citibank customers will be able to make remote deposits at 2,200 Vcoms located in 7-Elevens in the next couple of months," Mr. Brewster said.
Cardtronics purchased 7-Eleven's entire ATM fleet in 2007 for $137 million — about 3,500 standard ATMs and about 2,000 Vcoms — though most of the machines remained in 7-Eleven stores.
Cardtronics has been looking for ways to make the Vcom kiosks more profitable. They are capable of numerous functions, including selling money orders and supporting consumer bill payments, but Cardtronics has shut off some features. It has moved some of the machines to different 7-Eleven sites and installed some new ones.
Members of credit unions that use the surcharge-free ATM network operated by Co-op Financial Services can also make deposits at all of the Vcom machines.
Revenue from the Vcom machines was $1.24 million in the fourth quarter, up 119% from a year earlier.
Citi struck a branding deal in 2006 to put its logo on Cardtronics' ATMs at 7-Eleven stores.
Michael Clinard, its president of global services, said Cardtronics is making good on its pledge to switch to in-house processing. It is currently processing transactions for more than 27,000 of its 33,000 machines, including all of its U.K. ATMs, and plans to convert its machines in Mexico in the second quarter.
Cardtronics posted revenue of $118.2 million for the fourth quarter, up 2% from a year earlier.
It reported a loss of $57.9 million for the quarter, up sharply from the $7 million loss it reported a year earlier, because of a writedown of goodwill associated with its Bank Machine Ltd. operations in the United Kingdom.
