6 ms·
In the UK at least it's common for ATMs at banks and supermarkets to be built into the wall. You still have freestanding ones too (including in bank branches),
by ZenoArrow 9y ago
In the UK at least it's common for ATMs at banks and supermarkets to be built into the wall. You still have freestanding ones too (including in bank branches), but if the solution to this issue is to get rid of the freestanding ones, it's not likely to be a major inconvenience, especially as many stores offer cash back on request (e.g. buy a pack of gum on card, request £30 cash back, get charged for the gum and the cash, resulting in obtaining £30 cash taken from the till).
- mseebach 9y agoMoving the cash from even a free-standing ATM to the till seems unlikely to be a net improvement in security.
- isostatic 9y agoThe till probably has under £500 in, probably less. The ATM probably 20 times that. By offering cash back you're reducing the amount of cash kept in store, reducing the chance of being robbed (less worthwhile). By putting an ATM in store you're increasing the cash on premises, and in your tills (as people use the ATM rather than cash back) Cash back is a win-win for stores.
- mseebach 9y agoThen either the ATM had 20x too much cash in it, or the store will be unable to satisfy 19/20 requests for cash back? People withdrawing cash from the ATM (often incurring a non-trivial fee) to pay in the same store, rather than just paying on card, seems to be a marginal case and indeed inferior to card payment.
- tialaramex 9y agoATMs are often refilled only every day or two, whereas the store's registers are replenished periodically, often at shift changes or when demand increases. Perhaps more importantly the register also takes _in_ cash as unrelated customers pay with cash.
- mseebach 9y agoCash in an ATM is orders of magnitude safer than cash in a till, most significantly for the store staff as less cash invites fewer (traumatising, dangerous) robberies. When I worked in a convenience store 20 years ago, we’d dump cash into a safe through a mail slot every time the cash in the till rose over a certain amount (the register computer would show a red bar with a message to this effect), and we’d routinely have to turn down requests for all but trivial amounts of cash back for this reason.
- HeyLaughingBoy 9y agoThe store usually has nothing to lose. In most cases, the ATM in small stores isn't owned by the store: the ATM owner pays them a fee for having it there.
- eric_h 9y agoThere are ~20 ATMs within a 5 block radius of my apartment (NYC), all in small shops that have no place for an in-wall ATM, and this is in a relatively low ATM density area of the city; there are thousands more like this across the 5 boroughs. In aggregate these small freestanding ATMs are a huge business, it's unlikely they will harden their whole fleet by building in-wall installations.
- HeyLaughingBoy 9y agoNot too many walls will stand up to being rammed by a Bobcat or other small skid loader, and those can be easily transported by a pickup truck and a trailer.
- ZenoArrow 9y agoThe ATMs built into walls tend to be larger / heavier than the standalone ones. You gonna fit a crane / forklift truck on that pickup truck / trailer too?
- HeyLaughingBoy 9y agoDo you know what a skid loader is? My point is that it'll just punch a hole in the wall, ATM and all. Then pick it up and drive away.
- ZenoArrow 9y agoOh it's going to drive away now. That will be hard for a police car to catch up with.