I was a guest the annual meeting of the European branch of ATM Industry Association. This was a two day event in London (May 22–23, 2012). I was there thanks to Tom Harper, founder of ATM Marketplace, that is, a B2B website for ancillary cash machine equipment (established circa 1997). Although my interest was to meet Tom to finalise an outline for a forthcoming history of the ATM, the almost ethnographic experience of attending a practitioner conference was refreshing. What follows are some of my impressions of the first day (as I had an overseas engagement the rest of the week).

The conference was jointly organised by ATMIA and Dominic Hirsh’s Retail Banking Research. I have used some of RBR’s data in the past and it is indeed one of the most authoritative sources of information on cash machines, cards and payments. During one of the presentations it was shown how estimates of ATM deployed in Sweden were more accurate than those the Riksbank.

Of greater interest for this blog, is that RBR also organises an annual conference on security. That was a bit disappointing since I was looking to hear on it. Other topics off the agenda included SEPA, regulation enabling independent ATM deployers (IAD) and pressures to reduce interchange fees. I was told they had been addressed in the recent past. In this sense and surprising for a meeting of some 70+ presenters and 500 attendees, the conference was much more ‘on theme’ than an academic gathering of similar size.

So what were the themes? The main theme was self service kiosks, while sub-themes included the cashless society and EMV (interoperation standard for Europay, Visa and Mastercard chip cards).

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