The likes of Access Bank plc, Guaranty Trust Bank Plc, Zenith Bank Plc, United Bank for Africa Plc (UBA), and FBN Holdings reported 12,159 Automated Teller Machines (ATM) in 2020 financial year.
Specifically, Access Bank in 2020 reported 2963 ATMs, while FBN Holdings with over 30million customers has 3,111 ATMs and 735 branches.
Further findings revealed that UBA with over 21 million customers reported 2,675 ATMs in 2020 as against 2,550 reported in 2019.
In addition, Zenith Bank last year had 2,044 ATMs in 2020 from 2,009 in 2019, while GTBank in 2020 reported 1,366 ATMs from 1,326 reported in 2019.
Banks customers have expressed that banks recently have slow down in ATM location in key strategy amid increasing customers and demand to transact business with cash.
Despite providing other channels of transactions, our correspondent gathered that Nigerian banks with increasing branches and customers are struggling to provide enough physical means for access to cash.
A bank customer of GTBank in Sango, Mr. Tope Peterson, urged the management of the bank to increase its ATM points in the branch, stressing that overcrowded customers between during the weekdays is alarming.
A customer of First Bank of Nigeria Limited in the same Sango, Mr. Moses Dada said the bank’s ATM often breakdown at critical period, leaving customers to queue behind few dispensing cash.
Nigerian banks have consistently supported the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) cashless policy with the introduction of digital channels such as Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD), Points of Sales (PoS), Mobile App, among others innovation to ease banking.
The President, Bank Customers Association of Nigeria (BCAN), Dr Uju Ogubunka in a chat with our correspondent said shortages of ATM in banking sector not an issue, expressing that poor network and crisis related to ATM transactions are major concerns.
According to him, “this is a developing country and the usage of ATMs in the banking sector has not been long. As you likely know, ATMs installation involved heavy cash. Banks will have to buy them in dollar.
“We can only appeal to banks to increase the number and we will also appeal to banks to educate customers on the use of other channels in order to reduce exposure to ATMs.
“I think we shouldn’t be concern about the number of ATMs but services provided by the banks through its usage. Customers complain on ATMs not dispensing cash on increase in the banking hall which should be.
“It is very critical that banks must provide effective ATMs channels for customers.”