The following is one of 13 commentaries that will appear in the ATM Future Trends Report 2012. Contributors representing several segments of the industry provided their insights on issues and trends they believe will shape the industry during the next five years.
It is great to see a majority response from ATM operators — banks, financial institutions and independent ATM deployers (IADs) — to this survey.
Although the participation from Europe, at just fewer than 20 percent, is lower that I would have liked, it still provides a good representative sample for the region.
Needless to say, mobile technology is the topic of the year. All seem to be convinced that there is a strong need to integrate mobile on the ATM channel. However, I would add a note of caution and point out that here in Europe such service offerings will only capture the interest of the «innovators» class of consumers. This is in contrast to other regions, such as Africa and India, where mobile technologies offer great opportunity to reach the unbanked sections of the populations.