At the request of Komerční banka and Moneta Money Banka regarding the sharing of the ATM network in June, at least two other banks are already hearing. Air Bank is interested and admits to it officially. The second, UniCredit Bank, is waiting for the results of the behind-the-scenes negotiations and does not want to confirm anything. Other banks are expressing caution and waiting to see what will happen. The duo of initiators did not address the domestic non-bank ATM operators, as confirmed by Komerční banka spokesman Michal Teubner for newstream.cz.
On the first Monday in June, Komerční banka (KB) together with Moneta Money Bank (MMB) launched a somewhat an unconventional campaign to share the ATM network across banks. The banking duo is protected by ecological principles within this event, reducing the carbon footprint and sustainable development. He calls on other banks to take part in the challenge because, according to them, it is useless for more banks to have more banks in many places, when each of them does the same thing. Informs about the account balance and issues banknotes.
Banks are saving. Komerční banka and Moneta start the era of shared ATMs
Komerční banka and Moneta will allow clients of both financial houses to withdraw money free of charge. In the next step of the cooperation, they are preparing to install common ATMs. The goal is savings, but also to expand the network in less accessible places.
Moving duplicate devices to places where no ATMs are far away would, according to the campaign initiators, increase the availability of cash services for clients who would otherwise have to travel far to withdraw from any ATM. Many clients welcome this initiative in discussions on social networks and in surveys precisely because of the expansion of the ATM network and also because they would no longer have to monitor which devices they are withdrawing money from due to the fees at most shared ATMs.
However, the reaction of the banking sector to the KB and MMB challenge so far looks lukewarm. According to Michal Teubner, this has been going on for quite some time. Before the pair of banks made the call public, this cooperation has been discussed for a long time at the Czech Banking Association (CBA). According to Teubner, the result is an impending agreement with Air Bank.
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The main motivation for shared ATMs is not CO2 savings, but costs
“It is crucial for us that more of our own ATMs with the possibility of free withdrawals was one of the benefits that we wanted to bring to our clients very quickly after the merger of Air Bank with Moneta. At a time when it was clear that we would not eventually join Moneta, we immediately started negotiating so that we could make free withdrawals in a partnership project with Komerční banka and Moneta. The negotiations have been going on for some time now and we believe in a positive result, “says company spokeswoman Jana Pokorná from Air Bank.
According to the number of ATMs, the main players in the market do not get so involved in the negotiations. Jednička, Česká spořitelna with 1780 ATMs, states that it is negotiating the sharing of an ATM network with a number of banks and is thus open to further negotiations with KB and MMB. However, he perceives the arguments of the initiators of the call for CO2 savings as surrogate, which only overshadow the main benefit and motivation for sharing. This is a saving, resp. sharing the financial costs associated with the operation of ATMs.
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“Even with the fact that our network is already ‘shared’ by competing clients and Spořitelna thus bears the largest share of ATM operating costs on the market, we are open to negotiations on whether and under what conditions competing banks are willing to share our costs with us. Says Filip Hrubý, spokesman for Česká spořitelna.
Market No. 2 ČSOB states that it is constantly optimizing its 1012 ATM network with regard to sustainability so as to provide its clients with a high standard of services, and notes that ATM network sharing is not currently planned. Other banks such as Raiffeisenbank or Fio do not want to get involved yet, referring to the fact that their clients already have payment cards with this benefit, when they can withdraw free of charge from ATMs of other banks.
The smallest banks refer to the fact that they do not have an ATM network and that they are not affected by the KB and MMB call. (mBank, Expobank, Trinity). There was no word from any of the banks about sharing the costs of operating the ATM network.
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