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Pendum LLC, which supplies cash to 60,000 ATMs in 42 states, last week outlined a strategic plan to coordinate operations and grow its business. The bottom-line goal: provide better customer service.
As part of the plan, Denver-based Pendum will relocate its armored car and corporate-support offices to a facility in Elmhurst, Ill., from Westmont, Ill.
The company also plans to open a high-tech ATM center this spring at a location near Elmhurst, Pamela Hoy, a Pendum spokesperson, tells ATM&Debit News.
"It could be across the street from our Elmhurst facility or a short car drive away," Hoy explains. Pendum is locating the ATM Tech center in Illinois because of the state's central location, she says.
The company's 500 maintenance technicians will train at the facility each year, working on ATMs manufactured by NCR Corp., Diebold Inc., Wincor Nixdorf AG, Nautilus Hyosung Inc., Triton Systems of Delaware Inc., Tranax Technologies Inc., Tidel (now known as NCR EasyPoint), Fujitsu Ltd., WRG Services Inc., Greenlink Technologies Inc., Lipman and Qualtex Corp.
In addition, Pendum will expand its call center, which is located in Denver. Call-center employees dispatch maintenance technicians to needed locations.
Pendum is spending millions on the new additions and upgrades, Hoy says. The company expects to complete work by mid 2009.
This is the first major company announcement Pendum has made since Bayside Capital Inc., a Miami-based investment firm, purchased a controlling interest in the company last June.
Pendum's restructuring marks a major change for the business.
"We are one company, but we have been operating as two," Hoy says.
Although Pendum works with major ATM vendors, including NCR and Diebold, Pendum also competes with them for ATM-maintenance services, says Kate Monahan, an analyst with Aite Group., a Boston-based consulting firm.
"There is very little in the ATM space that NCR and Diebold don't provide their customers," Monahan says. "This includes hardware, software, maintenance services, filling the machines with cash and monitoring ATM operations.
The vendors provide a lot of services, enabling them to get deeper into bank operations and sell them more products."
NCR and Diebold are beginning to at least talk about cash-recycling ATMs that reduce the need for armored car cash deliveries and pickups, which can be expensive, Monahan says.
Diebold recently sold 1,000 cash-recycling ATMs to Dexia SA, a Brussels, Belgium-based banking group (ADN, 11/13/08).
"It costs about $50 to pick up or deliver cash to a bank ATM and double that at an off-premise ATM, so you see the costs can add up," Monahan says.
But Nicole Sturgis, TowerGroup Inc.'s research director for delivery channels, says banks need to get cash to their ATMs to calm consumers who are "jumpy" about banks running out of cash in this economy.
"No bank wants to start a scare for something as simple as an ATM running out of cash, so business is still there for cash providers," Sturgis says.
Armored car cash deliveries have been a major part of Pendum's service offerings, but its clients have not conveyed to Pendum that they are moving to cash-recycling ATMs, Hoy says.
Pendum supplies cash to large financial institutions, community banks, credit unions and to Houston-based ATM independent sales organization Cardtronics Inc. It also provides cash to the gaming industry through a contract with Global Cash Access Holding Inc., a Las Vegas-based company that serves 1,100 casinos, Hoy says.
To emphasize its approach to the business, Pendum employs the tagline "The Value of ONE." Pendum executives say the tagline captures the company's ability to provide a "seamless combination of ATM sales, maintenance and armored cash services."
In a statement, Jim Campbell, Pendum CEO, said the company is improving its business operations thanks to Bayside Capital's investment.
"We're in a great financial position to invest in our business, so now is the right time to align our people and facilities for the future," he said. ATM
