The revenue for an ATM owner is derived from the surcharge or through an interchange fee on transactions conducted at the ATM. In a high-traffic location, the revenues can add up to a tidy sum monthly. Nonetheless, the margins that add up as revenue are tight. And so, the ATM owner must decide on a number of decisions before the setting up of the ATM.
These decisions are made so that the expenditure can be kept at a minimum while maintaining a high-end service and security. Most of these expenses are maintained under the heading cash management. The other expenses included are the costs of balancing the books, keeping the cash in the ATM and costs of provision of security when delivering and loading the ATM. Most of the financial institutions fill in their owned ATMs with their cash while other look for third-party cash management. Basically, the non-bank locations are categorised into two- one in which the merchant or the ISO loads cash and the other that uses vault cash services.
Statistics: According to the President of Columbus Data Services, a third-party Vault Cash Management Company and vault cash provider estimated that only a 10 percent of the ATMs located in the United States make use of vault cash services. The President Ron Schuldt states that not every merchant can afford the expense of vault cash management as not every ATM has transactions sufficient enough to offset the expenditure of using those services. The business is supposed to be risky as it is, but there are methods of minimising those risks remarkably. This can be achieved by the installation of an effective cash management program by employing armoured car services, vault cash and right proportion of insurance level.
The Ownership: The ownership of an ATM has proved to be an efficient and sound mode of making living providing reasonable profits for owners all around the world. The setting up may seem more complicated than it appears to be. Simply deciding to become an owner or choosing a location isn’t enough. The ATM machine needs to be leased or bought through an ISO. The business side requires agreements to be taken care of. A transaction processor mediates the procedure of the transfer of cash to cardholders from their account via the ATM. The armoured car delivers the cash to the ATM from the owner’s cash provider (bank) and also picks up cash from the ATM. These activities take place on a regular basis for which the ATM owner must or should have insurance in case anything wrong takes place. Crimes pertaining to ATMs do not occur much frequently though attract a lot of media attention. The necessary forms of insurance for ATM owners require coverage on the value of the machine, protection against any accidental mishaps and the cash in transit.
Conclusion: As ATMs handle boatloads of cash, the cost of vault cash services is repaid many times by some ATM owners. Some of the owners try to cut expense by filling in the job for loading and supplying themselves or hire employees or merchants for the same. This can further create problems of theft by the employee and also difficulties in claiming the insurance coverage. The fact here is that most ATM owners would not even consider starting this particular business without a legit vault cash management as without it they lack confidence. The confidence that armoured cars, transaction processors and banks handling ATM management as proven professionals paves the path for an individual to initiate the process. Fortunately, the ATM owner do not actually become involved in each step of the procedure.