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Wells Fargo & Co. is deploying 277 envelope-free ATMs in the Los Angeles area to serve customers and save trees. The San Francisco-based bank plans to install the ATMs throughout the city and suburbs, Alicia Moore, head of Wells Fargo ATM banking, tells CardLine sister publication ATM&Debit News. The ATMs, which are made by Wincor Nixdorf AG, a Paderborn, Germany-based manufacturer, are bulk-cash deposit machines that accept up to 30 checks and 50 bank notes at one time, Moore says. Wells Fargo was the nation's first major bank to roll out bulk-cash and bulk-check deposit envelope-free ATMs, deploying the machines in 2006. The bank's network has 6,950 ATMs, including 1,575 envelope-free machines. In the two years since Wells Fargo began installing envelope-free ATMs, the bank says it has processed 49 million checks with the machines, eliminating the need for 30.1 million envelopes. That equates to 245 tons of paper and the saving of 4,116 trees, the bank says, based on estimates by the Environmental Defense Paper Calculator, a service of the New York-based Environmental Defense Fund.
