General News

ATMIA Europe is pleased to welcome all our new members. In particular we welcome HSBC one of the largest and truly global banks, and G4S an ATMIA Global sponsor and one of the largest International CIT organisations.

European Central Bank – Payment Habits

Antonio Arrieta who is known to many, is currently carrying out independent studies for his personal education. As part of those studies he has requested assistance from ATMIA European Members in completing a short survey as requested below:

I am currently working in my doctoral thesis for Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia of Spain on the use of the single currency and the evolution of the inflation. A part of this work is an on-line survey which I intend to use for gathering information on the payments habits in the 12 countries of the euro area which starting using the single currency in 2002.

In this framework, I would like to ask for your co-operation in the euro area asking members to fill-in the questionnaires and to forward the exercise as well. Please be aware that in order to reach statistical significance around 500 answers per country are needed.

The questionnaires (one per country/language) and more information on this exercise can be accessed by clicking this link:

http://www.freewebs.com/tesis-euro-hicp/

Additional information could be sought at the following e-mail address:

tesis.euro.hicp@googlemail.com

European Standards

• Note Degradation Standards
  At a recent BSi meeting it was confirmed that the newly formed CEN/TC263/WG4  Note Degradation Task Force committee will be meeting on 20th September. While there is a concensus of opinion for a common European Standard, France Germany and Italy are questioning the validity of the Task force compared with the mandate of the EN Working Group. There appears to be a conflict between the “Users & Manufacturers” in terms of the objectives of the standard, in particular the ESTA  concerns regarding imposed standards and products.
  
  
• EN and UL Safe Standards
  A meeting will be held soon at the UL laboratories US, in order to assess equivalency of standards to EN including composite materials. This may impact future ATM manufacture and sales for product designated for the European market.

Bank of Scotland – New Notes issue dates confirmed.

It has now been confirmed that the new series of banknotes in Scotland remain on track to be issued as from 17th September. If you are interested please contact Bank of Scotland as given below;

Contact Sue Grant, Telephone 0131 317 6983, e-mail Stuart_Grant@bankofscotland.co.uk

Or obtain information from the website www.bankofscotland.co.uk/banknotes