Cash machines spawn a green revolution of sorts
During my college days, which I like to think weren’t all that long ago, Friday afternoons were always the same. Drop everything and rush to the bank by 3 p.m. to get spending cash or face the prospect of a very long, very cheap weekend.
Credit cards were too costly in the long run and finding a bar that took personal checks was slightly more difficult than finding someone who admitted to voting for Michael Dukakis. This was a time when getting cash was almost harder than holding onto it.
These days, it seems to be just the opposite. Automated teller machines have sprung up with greater frequency than Starbucks franchises over the past decade or so, making it extremely easy to get your money and, therefore, harder to resist spending it.
With little fanfare, they have infiltrated our lives to an amazing degree. There are roughly 324,000 machines in the U.S. alone -- springing up everywhere from convenience stores to hotel lobbies to the local mall. But their influence goes far beyond getting beer money whenever and wherever you need it.
There’s the new Barbie Bank With Me toy, which features the famous doll and her ready-to-use toy ATM card, teaching kids just out of disposable diapers the meaning of disposable income.
And there’s the recent installation of a teller machine high atop China’s Huang Shan mountain. There’s even been talk of applying the technology to voting in major cities.
Cash machines have become an industry unto themselves, with one being installed somewhere around the world every six minutes, according to the Automated Teller Machine Industry Assn., which held its annual conference last month in San Diego. The association, an alliance of those who manufacture, service and sell ATMs, doesn’t just see itself as a trade organization dedicated to improving the quality and reputation of cash machines. Its executive director, Michael Lee, also considers his organization to be like a group of democratic freedom fighters.
“We have to remember that the money in banks doesn’t belong to the banks. It’s our own money,” he explains.
“ATM technology has helped us realize this. The technology has freed us in terms of time and space. You can go where you want to get your own money whenever you want it. To me, this is all about a revolution in our society.”
So, in a sense, every time you use your ATM card, you are striking a blow for independence. Although, as ATM user Tony Santos of Playa del Rey put it when told of Lee’s position, “If this were truly a democratic revolution, why is it that we can still only take out $300 at a time?”
The technology responsible for our economic liberation is still relatively new, at least compared to other life-changing technology like the microchip or potato chips that come in a can. The modern version of the ATM was created in England in the mid-1960s by a man named John Shepherd-Barron, who came up with the idea while in his bathtub. (No doubt, on a Saturday night as he pondered how he was going to find cash to pay for an evening on the town.)
A few years later, a Texan named Don Wetzel devised his own version of the machine while waiting in an excessively long bank line. It wasn’t until the latter 1980s that ATMs really gained a foothold in our lives, however, and began showing up everywhere, including the plaza of L.A.’s newest cathedral.
It’s no coincidence that the presence of cash machines increased about the same time as 24-hour grocery stores and open-all-night fast-food joints. “It’s really become one of the main drivers of the self-service, 24/7 society that we now live in,” says Lee. “If you’re shopping at 2 in the morning and you need cash, the ATM has liberated that access. It’s shaped society quite dramatically from that standpoint.”
It shouldn’t surprise anyone that acquiring cash comes with a price. In this case, that involves security and user fees. Industry experts detailed some of the new techniques thieves have found to raid card users’ accounts. One of the most popular approaches is known as “skimming.” Criminals place a false front on an ATM machine, complete with a screen and a place to swipe your card. That front then records card and code numbers, which criminals can use to create their own duplicate cards.
“Security happens to be at the top of our awareness,” explains Michael Hudson, a conference attendee and chief executive officer of Tidel, an ATM manufacturer. Out of the billions of ATM transactions though, he insists that “security issues are a very small percentage. Ninety-eight percent or more of the transactions are done legally. We just want to make sure that our own technology doesn’t get turned against us.”
None of this has killed consumer craving for instant cash. According to Lee, surveys have found that the ATM is the second most trusted consumer device, trailing only the home telephone.
“People are just used to the machines operating smoothly and quickly,” he says. “My bank is in England, but when I got here to the San Diego airport, I went to the ATM and drew local currency. The authorization process for that took seconds. And I realized that the quality of the technology is so good, that’s where the trust comes in.”
It’s a privilege we’re also willing to pay for. There’s now a fee attached to using the bulk of ATMs, but most of the conference-goers seemed to be in agreement that this was essentially a dead issue. Federal courts recently shot down bans on user fees in Santa Monica and San Francisco, which didn’t surprise anyone at the San Diego event.
“We do care about the fees because they help to support and pay for these machines. They’re inextricable from the business,” says Ernest Burdette, president of Triton, a firm that has more than 70,000 ATMs around the world. “I think consumers have settled on the fact that they get value for that charge. It’s a convenience. People are willing to pay $1.50 not to wait in line for something so they can get home in time for dinner.”
But even as we become more willing to pay for the privilege of getting our money, many of the new gimmicks in store for ATMs are missing one thing: cash. At the ATM conference, there were models that would allow customers to buy money orders and send them off to family or friends. Another seemed to sell everything from additional minutes on cell phones to movie tickets to CDs to flowers. One design would even allow a customer to use an ATM card to create another debit card.
“I would never say cash won’t remain king, but the additional products and services are going to turn it into more than just a cash device,” says Scott White, director of content delivery for NCR, one of the country’s busiest ATM makers.
No matter what the future holds, there’s still one place you’re always likely to find cash -- the pockets of attendees at an ATM conference.
A random survey of the people in the display hall found that nobody had less than $40 in their pocket, and that the hot spot at the conference hotel just might have been the ATM machine by the front desk.
“I saw a line of people in the lobby waiting to use it when I got here,” said Jaimee Urell, a representative of Cash Connect banking service, with a laugh. “It looked like the place to be.”
