Bank of Ireland has signed a five year outsourcing contract with Wincor Nixdorf for the installation and management of an off-premises network of 500 cash machines.
Rollout of Wincor Nixdorf's ProCash 1500 units has been underway since mid-January.
The bank says the ATMs will be available at 100 new locations by the end of March. During the initial stage, over half of the units will be installed in rural areas, with 205 of these in areas where cash machines are currently up to 20 kilometres apart.
Under an agreement with the countrywide independent retail group Musgrave SuperValu-Centra, the Bank of Ireland will be the preferred provider of cash machines at up to 250 locations. The aim of the agreement is to reduce the time it takes customers to find an ATM.
The outsourcing deal includes asset and location management, operation of self-service systems and the management of data centres and networks. Wincor Nixdorf will also provide operational services including cash management, transaction management and back-office processesing.
Bank of Ireland says under this roll out, its ATM network will grow by almost 50%, from 546 to 1046 machines.