Citibank Plans to Install ATMs at Blockbuster

Citibank said Wednesday it will install as many as 3,000 automated teller machines in Blockbuster Video stores across the U.S. starting this quarter, expanding its ATM network to 39 states.

Citibank, the retail banking unit of Citicorp, doesn’t plan to charge “access fees,” or surcharges, at the ATMs, a spokesman said. The nation’s 11th-largest bank, with $56 billion in assets, now has about 400 branches in nine states, including California, and the District of Columbia.

Citibank installed ATMs in Blockbuster stores in Peru and Colombia last fall and is expanding the program to Chile and Argentina.

Blockbuster said the deal is the first of several partnerships to provide new services. Blockbuster, a unit of Viacom Inc., has 6,000 video stores and 400 music stores in the U.S. and 26 other countries.

The agreement comes a week after Citibank said it would open “sales and information offices, essentially mini-branches an average of 500 square feet, inside eight Kinko’s Inc. copy centers.”