ATM Transactions Dip 40% In UK
AMINA HUSSAINI, Abuja
Preference seems to be rising for online payments in the United Kingdom as transactions on automated teller machines (ATM) dropped by 40 percent and recording 110.4 million withdrawals across the country in May.
The coronavirus lockdown forced a huge number of people to embrace online payments across the world following fears the virus could be contacted via the ATMs.
Data from BuyShares in the United Kingdom shows that even before the COVID-19 pandemic, the use of the physical currency among the Britons was in decline, and, with consumers staying at home amid coronavirus lockdown, ATM transactions hit the deepest point in years.
The trend was the same in Nigeria where the pandemic reversed the option in a country where a larger percentage of its population depends on ATM transactions owing to low financial inclusion.
Data from First Bank Nigeria corroborated BuyShares’ analysis, showing that in the lockdown period, Nigeria’s first generation bank recorded 12.6 million transactions amounting to N156 billion on its ATMs across the country in the five-week period. However, on its digital platforms, First Bank recorded 106 million payments, amounting to about N8.18 trillion.
According to the publication by www.buyshares.co.uk, the monthly number of ATM transactions in the United Kingdom plunged by 40 percent year-on-year reaching 110.4 million as of May.
BuyShare is an advisory platform in the United Kingdom, assisting prospective investors in making investment decisions on how and where to invest.
“In December 2019, the monthly number of ATM transactions in the United Kingdom amounted to 204.24 million, revealed Statista and VocaLink data. In the next two months, this figure dropped to 180.99 million. However, with the coronavirus lockdown rules in place, the number of ATM transactions plunged to 154.93 million in March, a 33 percent fall year-on-year. The downsizing trend continued in the second quarter of 2020, with the number of transactions reaching 110.43 million in May”.
Statistics also show that, due to the COVID-19 outbreak, the value of ATM withdrawals in the United Kingdom plummeted to the deepest level during the period under observation. In December 2019, the monthly value of cash withdrawals from ATMs that belonged to the LINK cash machine network in the United Kingdom amounted to £9.9bn. In the next two months, this figure fell to £8.2bn, a usual drop in the first two months of the year.
However, with millions of Britons locked inside their homes amid COVID-19 pandemic, the monthly value of withdrawals plunged to £7.4bn in March, almost £2.8bn decrease year-on-year. The downsizing trend continued in the last two months with the amount falling to £5.6bn in May, a 45 percent dive compared to the same month a year ago.
Besides a significant drop in the number and the value of monthly ATM transactions, recent years have also witnessed a decrease in the combined number of cash machines operating in the United Kingdom.
In the second quarter of 2016, Britons could use more than 70,100 ATMs across the country. Since then, the number of cash machines has dropped by more than 10,500, totalling approximately 60,000 in the first quarter of 2020.
Analysed by operators, Cardtronics represents the market leader with over 17,500 ATMs as of December 2019. Statistics show that NoteMachine is the second-largest operator in the country with more than 10,500 cash machines. NatWest and PayPoint follow with nearly 7,000 and 4,000 ATMs, respectively.
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