Snakes, tramps and ATMs

OK I have to admit I have something in common with Indiana Jones – I hate snakes. Sadly that’s where the similarity ends.  My worst nightmare would be to have a snake come from the ATM rather than cash. I’ve seen that same YouTube video purporting to come from three different places at three different times – so maybe it’s another myth that was never really true. (Well that’s how I’ll comfort myself to continue using the ATM – it belongs to the same bunkum like entering your PIN backwards calls the police.)

But it did remind me of another story at one of my contacts who had said that they found that no cash had been taken from one of their ATMs – when they went to investigate they found a tramp had set up home in front of an ATM and nobody wanted to wrestle past the odour challenges just to get cash.

So given my last blog and I hope, not my solo belief, that ATMs are for cash only – and are therefore a cornerstone of our society – they need to be available.

Being available means the whole ecosystem is available, not just the Switch with its 24/7/365 system with disaster recovery, but the network, the electricity at the ATM, the cash in the ATM and free of tramps, snakes and other undesirable things that will prevent us using the ATM.

Filling up the cash is a highly cultural experience – I have witnessed extremes of cash filling in my travels (sorry I’m an ATM geek!) From eight armed guards changing the cassettes in Macedonia, to an unnamed Arab country where a guy turns up at a poorly lit IKEA car park in his Volkswagen Polo on his own – gets some cash out of a briefcase in the back of his car and puts it in the ATM – with the ATM completely exposed.

It is an art form predicting and filling the cash, but it is also an art form ensuring you have all the information to keep the ATMs usable. Being in service isn’t enough – is it doing the usual number of transactions – or could it possibly be the star of the next YouTube video? ATM providers must be vigilant – to ensure we can always perform our least favourite chore, going to the ATM easily and efficiently and snake free.