Cash deposits at ATMs are increasing for the seventh year in a row

2024-08-20 09:00:00, Aktualitet CNA

Cash deposits at ATMs are increasing for the seventh year in a row

Illustrative photo

Automatic deposit of money in ATMs is increasing for the seventh year in a row.

According to Bank of Albania statistics, for the first 6 months of this year, a total of 477,000 cash deposits were registered at ATMs. Compared to the same period a year ago, the number of deposits increased by 34%.

The total value of deposits for the 6-month period has reached 23.2 billion ALL, increasing by 33% compared to the same period a year ago.

Even last year, cash deposits at ATMs recorded a strong increase, proving a tendency towards automation in banking services related to cash.

For 2023, customers of the banking sector made more than 769 thousand automatic deposits at ATMs, an increase of 34% compared to the previous year. Since 2020, cash deposit actions at ATMs have increased by four times.

Cash deposits at ATMs were worth 37.9 billion lek, an increase of 27% compared to a year ago. Even the value of ATM cash deposits has increased by more than four times since 2020.

The number of ATMs with physical cash deposit function is increasing, witnessing the expansion of investments to automate the provision of banking services. The data of the Bank of Albania show that the number of ATM devices enabling cash deposits in the middle of this year reached 373, an annual increase of 3.3%.

About 39% of the total number of ATMs in the country offer cash deposit services.

The addition of ATMs with a cash deposit function is an important development for facilitating the provision of banking services. Cash transactions have been and still remain one of the main reasons for the flow of customers to bank branches.

The automation of this service through ATMs is gradually affecting the flow facilitation, the reduction of queues and the use of bank branches only for those cases where the provision of the service by the staff is necessary.

The use of technologies that automate simple operational processes is, among other things, a way to increase the efficiency of banks and to engage human resources in more complex processes, at a time when the insufficiency of human resources is becoming a challenge for the economy.

At the end of June, the Albanian banking sector offered a total of 912 active ATMs, an increase of 4.8% compared to a year ago.

The number of ATMs had continuously decreased in the period 2015-2019, especially due to the decrease in the number of branches, but also due to the decrease in the total number of commercial banks. But, starting from 2020, even under the impetus of the pandemic, banks increased the number of ATMs (mainly located in environments outside branches), in order to facilitate the flow of operations at the counters.

Meanwhile, the increase in tourism is affecting the increase in the number of bank ATMs, especially in coastal areas.

On the other hand, the addition of ATMs is also accompanied by updating the technology and the spectrum of services offered by them (such as, for example, the provision of services such as making subscriptions or payments for third parties)./ Monitor. al