ATM Industry Group Goes On The Offensive In ‘War On Cash’

The payment card industry’s ongoing battle to displace paper-based payment products such as cash and checks appears to have struck the soft underbelly of at least one industry organization.

Fighting what it calls a “war on cash” by the card industry, the ATM Industry Association this week launched a social-media campaign to remind the public of the importance and ease of cash use. The timing of the public-awareness drive is in response to Visa’s promotion of a “cashless” 2012 London Olympics later this summer, association CEO Mike Lee tells PaymentsSource.

Ron Delnevo, director of the United Kingdom Payments Council, earlier this month fired a similar salvo against Visa (see story).  His views on the use of cash and Visa’s exclusive ATM setup at the Olympics stem from his role as managing director of Bank Machine, a founder of the ATM network servicing the UK, and his roles on various ATM associations and committees of the UK’s Link ATM network.

The irony is that consumers use debit cards for the vast majority of their ATM transactions, an irony Lee is well aware of.

“There is an interdependence between cards and cash, and that is why we think the card schemes should drop all ‘war talk’ about a 'war on cash’ because all payment methods coexist and are interdependent,” Lee says. “But cardless transactions are now possible anyway, and mobile phones and the telcos threaten the card schemes.”

Through a video titled “Cash Connects Us,” the ATM Industry Association cites the history and importance of cash. It also reminds them the number of ATMs and the preponderance of cash transactions today are growing despite payment card technology.

The effort represents the global nonprofit association’s first YouTube video, Lee says. The association has a presence on Twitter and LinkedIn and later this year will have a Facebook page.

The organization uses the Twitter account to share news with members, says Lee. It also works with its Cash Council Group, which also touts ATM industry discussions and announcements, to host the LinkedIn account, Lee says.

“Social media represent the voice of the ‘now’ generation, and the technology of cash and ATMs is still very relevant to this generation,” Lee says. “We want to reach beyond our industry to the general public with our message that ATMs and cash are user-friendly technologies that bring a lot of good to society and to people. We need to counteract the 'war on cash' propaganda from the (the card industry) and their myth of the cashless society.”

Another challenge is the search for more ways for ATMs to interface with mobile technology to transform itself into a payments hub, Lee says. He cites an ATM made by Wincor Nixdorf that does cardless cash withdrawals for holders of mobile phone accounts so that it is not necessary to have a bank account.

The addition of functions and features to ATMs in recent years shows the ATM industry is aware of consumers’ mobile and online-banking options, Aite Group senior analyst David Albertazzi tells PaymentsSource.

“For a long time, we’ve talked about multichannel integration, and ATMs now are starting to embrace this a little bit more, especially in the area of user experience,” says Albertazzi. “The personalization is in terms of remembering your last amount that you withdrew as opposed to the standard amount, and connecting the ATM experience with the online experience and the mobile experience by sending alerts.”

Also driving the use of cash in the U.S. are the effects of the Durbin amendment’s cap on debit card interchange paid by merchant acquirers, says Albertazzi. Because card companies responded by raising transaction fees on small debit card purchases, merchants prefer that customers use cash for such purchases.

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