Number Of ATMs Falling, Number Of Reverse ATMs Rising

America had 470,000 ATMs (the machines where you put in a card to get out some cash) when their numbers peaked in 2019. By the end of last year, according to Euromonitor International, there were 451,000. Meanwhile, the number of reverse ATMs (the machines where you put in some cash to get out a card) is steadily growing.

Alternative Networks

I remember that many years ago when I first went to a restaurant in Moscow there were two things that struck me as unusual. Firstly, when I was shown an extensive list of vodkas to choose from and declined and asked for a soft drink, they brought me a list of beers. Secondly, the restaurant had what appeared to be two ATMs in it. One of them was indeed an ATM and I saw people withdraw cash from it. But the second was not an ATM but a reverse ATM, which I had never seen before. People would draw money from the ATM and then feed cash into the reverse ATM to pay their mobile phone bills, utility bills and to get virtual card numbers to use for online shopping. I thought that after the invention of smartphones, these would disappear. But I was wrong, they are back. In America.