The End of Cash? What ATMs Tell Us About the Future of Money

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0:00The banking world is entering a cashless age driven by mobile and contactless payments.

0:05In 2024, contactless payments surged globally to the tune of 10

0:09trillion dollars across more than 450 billion global transactions.

0:13Online payments reached almost 13 trillion dollars with over 200 billion transactions.

0:18But as digital channels expand, the physical infrastructure we once depended on,

0:22like bank branches and ATMs, is becoming less visible in people's daily lives.

0:27According to research from Datos Insights, there are close to 3 million ATMs in the world.

0:33That's about 360 ATMs for every 1 million people.

0:37Covid really accelerated people's use of Digi Banking.

0:40If I were to compare it say 5 years ago, there is a reduction in the people who use our machines.

0:47In some nations, cashless spending has become routine, shaped by high trust in financial

0:52institutions, widespread smartphone adoption, and robust digital payment infrastructure.

0:57Sweden is often cited as the clearest example

1:00with over 98% of its population owning a debit or credit card.

1:04Other countries on the way to a cashless society include Norway,

1:08Finland, South Korea and Singapore.

1:11Singapore is a prime example of this shift. According to figures

1:14disclosed by the Monetary Authority of Singapore,

1:16the nation's bank branches and ATMs have fallen by an average of 2% a year over the past decade.

1:22And as of 2026, there are 150 retail branches and 1,600 off- premise ATMs.

1:29This follows a similar trend for most of Southeast Asia.

1:31Bank branches in Indonesia

1:33Brunei,

1:34Thailand

1:34and Malaysia

1:35have declined steadily in the last decade.

1:38They're being replaced by services such as Singapore's Pay Now, a digital payment system

1:43launched in 2017. It allows users to transfer and receive funds using just their mobile number.

1:49What government and Monetary Authority of Singapore have done is built real

1:55time digital payment infrastructure. So you built national rails and then within

2:03those rails you allow competition to happen at user experience. So MAS has set standards

2:11and incentives perhaps grants and support but allowed banks and fintechs to innovate.

2:18What we have done is that we've effectively looked at our top transactions that are done

2:23over the counter today and these transactions used to comprise 80% of why people go to the branches

2:28and now we've moved them to the machines so that people can access them at their convenience 24/7.

2:33We've seen so many evolutions on you know of customer behaviors.

2:37So we've got the digital native generation right and they have never set foot into a branch.

2:42It has to change because digital technologies are superior to physical infrastructure. Why?

2:50Because they have lower marginal cost, better scalability, they have stronger data analytics.

2:56So economic forces tell us this will keep moving in that direction and there is no going back.

3:03But cash hasn't disappeared. It remains a dependable fallback,

3:06especially in an era where cyberattacks and natural disasters are increasingly common.

3:12We can think of ATMs and physical infrastructure

3:16as a backup. And that's where value of cash will still lie.

3:20Even in a highly digital market like Singapore, cash is still common in certain settings,

3:25particularly through small value transactions or in the nation's traditional hawker centers.

3:31When we look at where to place our ATMs, we look at a lot of factors. We look at the demand of the

3:36area. Pop-up ATMs are great in the sense that they are able to help us meet seasonal demand.

3:41Across emerging economies, ATMs still play a crucial role.

3:45Egypt and Uzbekistan are even expanding their networks driven by the needs of

3:49rural and remote communities where internet coverage remains uneven.

3:54This happens around the world. When you think of most emerging markets,

3:58when you think of South Asia, Africa, Latin America, even some Eastern European countries

4:04where we have unstable connectivity, irregular merchant acceptance and low digital literacy. So,

4:11you got to think of what's the best hybrid approach,

4:15how to embed this physical infrastructure like ATMs into the digital customer journey.

4:23ATMs are also upping their suite of services from

4:26biometric authentication and cash recycling to coin deposit machines.

4:30But as they expand their capabilities,

4:32the maintenance behind them will need to become more advanced too.

4:36Cyber security has grown so much because everything is

4:40going online. A lot of people are trying to steal or attack.

4:44So this is one of a really good example of the jobs that will come to the front

4:49line. How to protect all these customers, all these data that is now digital on bank servers.

4:57With AI and Agentic AI what we are seeing is we're incorporating them for our staff

5:02to better assist our customers. So that very much is a priority for us.

5:06In the short term, a lot of jobs will be taken away by AI

5:11digitalization. But then in intermediate and long-term,

5:15what will happen as it happens usually in these revolutionary changes, new jobs will be created.

5:21So while payment habits continue to evolve, ATMs are not disappearing. They're adapting

5:26to remain a meaningful part of the financial ecosystem.