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Even though customers have moved towards cashless payments in recent years, more people are starting to rely on cash again as cost of living pressures increase. So, access to cash is more important now than ever before. But, accessing cash is becoming increasingly difficult as bank branches are disappearing on high streets across the UK.
The access to cash dilemma
As we discussed at the ATMIA’s Europe and Emerging Markets 2024 conference earlier this month, there is a great need for banks to optimise processes to keep cash relevant and cost effective, but also ensure that it fits within the wider payments landscape. It is important for cash and cashless payments to be able to co-exist to provide a truly omnichannel offering to customers.
So, how can banks ensure that customers have widespread access to cash, but also to cashless services? Do the answers to this question lie in greater integration between cash and cashless? Or does the answer lie in utilising technology and data to make the cash ecosystem more efficient? Or does the truth lie somewhere in the middle?
Many of the technological advancements such as recycling focus only on the endpoints and there are more fundamental issues at play within cash management networks that need addressing. Some of these issues are centred around the infrastructure needed to collect and distribute cash, as well as the costs associated with the cash replenishment process. These are some of the core issues which are contributing to branch closures and the reduction of ATM networks, making accessing cash that much harder.
Fundamentally, we need to remember that when customers withdraw cash from an ATM, they are essentially buying ‘goods’ using a card transaction at a point of sale, it just happens that those ‘goods’ are cash. Ultimately, the delivery of any goods incurs a cost in this case the handling, distribution and management of the cash. So, it is important for banks to find the right balance between being able to maintain their costs and providing much needed cash to customers. As such, banks must invest in modernising their ATM infrastructure to become much more flexible and efficient. However, this should not only be about upgrading the endpoints, but also about the integration of ATMs into the broader payments landscape and understanding changing customer behaviour.
Even though there has been a decline in bank branches and ATMs on High Streets, the strategic placement of these endpoints is important. They play a significant role in delivering financial services, especially in areas which have reduced access to branches. ATMs provide vital financial touchpoints for customers and ensure that they can still access cash when they need it.
Creating successful end-to-end cash management
Banks should be looking at how technology can help them in managing cash flow and transactions to tackle inefficiencies and high costs of cash itself, which have been highlighted as some of the major concerns regarding cash management. Therefore, it is crucial for financial services institutions to address these issues and deliver a strong end-to-end cash management strategy.
Through leveraging artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning and real-time data monitoring, banks can optimise the cash replenishment and forecasting processes to reduce any unnecessary costs and trips to fill up the ATM. This also lowers service disruptions and downtime of the ATM for customers.
In addition to this, data plays another significant role to ensure that financial services institutions are serving customers in the best way possible. Our new module, WWS INSIGHT, which we unveiled at the ATMIA event earlier this month, has been designed to transform how banks and independent ATM deployers understand and consume data from their self-service banking channels. This offering enables banks to increase the availability of ATMs and reduce management and maintenance costs of these endpoints.
Operational efficiency is important for end-to-end cash management and ensuring that customers can still access cash in a convenient and safe way. Despite a reduction in the number of people using cash and accessing ATMs, this self-service banking channel will continue to play a crucial role. This is especially true within a modern omnichannel banking strategy, which also includes cashless payments, and that caters to all.
