Six cardinal sins affecting ATM accessibility in Nigeria.

“Bauchi Deputy Governor Can’t Access Cash At ATMs”, the headlines screamed on July 1 2015. Apparently, there was no money in any of the three ATMs that the Deputy Governor tried, just to access N20k, according to a statement by the Permanent Secretary, Rabi’u Bello.

This is indeed a sad commentary for banks in Nigeria, especially against the backdrop of the recent NOI polls on Bank Financial Channels in the country, which revealed that ATMs were the most visible proceed of the banking sector reforms to Nigerians.

According to the survey, of all the bank channels, customers used ATMs 68% of the time compared to just 6% for Internet Banking and 6% for Point Of Sale terminals (PoS) respectively, with most customers using the ATMs more than once a week. The ATM has assumed great importance as the barometer of a bank’s brand as far as customers are concerned.

Austin Okere is the Founder of CWG Plc and Entrepreneur in Residence at CBS, New York.

It is therefore difficult to phantom why banks have not taken advantage of this ubiquitous channel to enhance their brand value and gain customer loyalty.

Given that my company is an active player in the industry as a Value Added Reseller of Wincor-Nixdorf ATMs, I feel obligated to disclose my interest; but it is this same vantage position that affords me the insight to comment on this passionate issue bedeviling Nigeria’s bank customers.

In my view, the unavailability of Banks’ ATM are predicated on six cardinal sins namely; Suboptimal Support Strategy, Low Spread, Low Penetration, Old Systems, Dirty and Mutilated Currency notes, and Techies running the show instead of business savvy personnel.