Spanish Banks May Let One Company Run All of their Cash Machines

THE future of bank owned and run cash machines in Spain may see a major change post Covid-19 as Euro Automatic Cash (EAC), owned jointly by Santander (through its Banco Popular subsidiary) and Credit Mutuel wants to shake up the system.

It believes that due to its size, it is in a position to offer a cheaper service to banks than they can manage if running their own cash machines and it has a vision of purchasing the rights to supply bank machines and then consolidate them.

Currently each bank has its own machine and on a high street you might find five machines all charging different prices for customer use, although for some time, Santander has been one of the most expensive to use for British visitors using British cards.

With the aftermath of the pandemic, banks are less likely to welcome customers and many expect them to use machines not just to take out cash but to make deposits and to pay bills but in most cases, each bank has a different system and it would be much easier for customers to know that the procedures will be the same everywhere.

It is not just banks that EAC is negotiating with as it also wants to expand its fleet of non-bank machines which are found in many shopping centres, airports and train stations and as this concept has been in place successfully in Belgium, the Netherlands and Scandinavia, Spain looks to be the next country to join in.