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CVS/Pharmacy, the nation's second largest drugstore chain, has asked its card
processor to analyze the impact of increasing or decreasing cashback at the point of
sale, a CVS spokesperson tells ATM&Debit News.
"We're not going to get into a lot of details about it," says Mike DeAngelis,
spokesperson for Woonsocket, R.I.-based CVS Caremark Corp., which owns CVS
/Pharmacy, operator of 6,300 drugstores nationwide. DeAngelis declined to name
the processor.
The report is part of an ongoing customer-satisfaction study the companies
appear unlikely to release publicly, he says. Customers currently receive a maximum
of $35 at the point of sale, he says. Houston-based Cardtronics, the world's
largest ATM independent sales organization based on machines owned and managed,
deploys ATMs in CVS stores.
Industry observers point an accusatory finger at cashback at the point of sale
as the primary reason cash withdrawal transactions from ATMs have declined
over the years. Cardtronics growth is based on the number of transactions, not
the amount of cash withdrawn from its machines.
