Update From Sandra Smith – September 2023

The last month saw ATMIA hold another successful Strategic Direction Committee meeting. In this meeting, we heard from the Reserve Bank of Australia. The RBA spoke to us about the ongoing relevance of cash in Australia’s payment system. Citing its RBA 2022 Consumer Payment Survey, the RBA pointed to a finding that 1/4 of respondents surveyed said they would experience a ‘major inconvenience’ or ‘genuine hardship’ if cash was hard to access/use. This was stable from the last time the survey was conducted in 2019 and indicates the ongoing importance of cash to a wide range of consumers in making their daily payments.

The findings also underscore the importance of cash in providing security and resilience to the payment system. Cash is the only method of payment that can offer consumers with a continuously available and universally accepted payment method. It is not prone to cyber-attacks and provides a level of privacy and anonymity that is unmatched. The minutes to the Strategic Direction committee is now available to members only, please click here.

ATMIA is continuing to work with our members and partners especially the Cash Welcome Group to push back against calls for a cashless society. Our joint petition with the cash welcome group to fight for the right to access and use cash has now reached over 123,000 signatures. These are amazing results and people are becoming more aware of the importance of fighting to maintain cash in the Australian payment landscape.

In relation recent criminal activity to ATMs, last month the Australian Federal Police (AFP) reported on an elaborate international crime syndicate that have been operating a card skimming working across two states. With a tip off from the United Secret Services, the AFP successfully arrested five foreign nationals, in some case these criminals were caught in the act as they inserted skimming devices into ATMs based in Brisbane.  To read the media report from AFP click here.

ATMIA together with the ATM Security Association aims to work with the AFP to assist and reducing criminal activity to ATMs and will meet with the AFP later this month.

The ATM Security Association provides a crisis and crime management intelligence system- it’s the first global crime intelligence data base for the ATM industry and is a centralised searchable database of ATM incidents that will help industry stakeholders to understand global crime trends, method and emerging forms of attacks.

If anyone members or industry stakeholders would like further information on joining the ATM Security Association and gaining access to the Crime Crisis Intelligence Management data base, please contact [email protected] or visit the ATMIA website for further details.

The ATMIA team is available anytime to answer any questions and assist with your membership.