The Central Bank noted a sharp increase in the popularity of cash withdrawals at store checkouts in 2023

The Central Bank noted a sharp increase in the popularity of cash withdrawals at store checkouts in 2023. The service is most actively promoted by Sberbank, which by the end of 2025 expects to double the number of retail outlets dispensing cash from its cards at checkouts. According to experts, in the foreseeable future the number of such points may exceed the number of ATMs.

As Kommersant was told by the Bank of Russia, in the first half of last year (more recent results have not been summed up), the volume of money withdrawn using cards at store checkouts in the Russian Federation more than tripled the same figure for the second half of 2022 and reached 12 billion rubles . Over three quarters, the number of retail outlets providing the cash-at-checkout service grew by more than 35% and exceeded 33 thousand.

The service is most actively promoted by Sberbank, which currently has more than 28 thousand retail outlets connected to it. The bank clarified to Kommersant that by the end of the year their number is planned to increase to 30 thousand: “We consider the development of the service both in cities and in remote settlements to be promising.”

As Alexey Voylukov, vice-president of the Association of Russian Banks, explained to Kommersant, the service for receiving cash at store checkouts began to actively develop, in fact, only at the end of 2022. “Currently, the volume of cash issued at the checkout is incomparable with what is withdrawn from ATMs—less than 0.1%,” the expert clarified. At the same time, in his opinion, “the service’s potential is very large and in the next two years the number of such points may well exceed the number of ATMs by 1.5 times.” Sberbank alone, according to Mr. Voylukov, will increase the number of points connected to the service to 60 thousand by the end of 2025.

Alexey Voylukov clarified that “a certain difficulty” is presented by the requirement of the Bank of Russia to register stores that issue cash at the checkout as bank payment agents. This, the expert explains, remains “a serious problem for small retail outlets.”

But for retail chains, the effectiveness of accompanying cash issuance is not obvious, emphasizes Roman Prokhorov, head of the board of the Financial Innovations association, since “it reduces the speed of customer service at the checkout and, accordingly, throughput, which is one of the key parameters of retail.”

“There is, of course, an objective reason for the demand for the development of cash dispensing services at the checkout – the reduction of ATM networks, since their maintenance is not a cheap pleasure, therefore credit institutions are forced to monitor the economic efficiency of using automatic cash dispensing/receiving devices and optimize the networks of such devices,”— the expert adds.

According to the Central Bank, the number of ATMs has been decreasing since 2020, decreasing during this time by almost 20 thousand devices, to 112.6 thousand by April 1, 2023. There was growth in the second and third quarters, but it was small—by about 400 ATMs. As Alexey Voylukov explained to Kommersant, the reason is that at the end of 2022, the Central Bank sent a letter to banks with a recommendation not to reduce the number of ATMs compared to the value as of March 1, 2022 – that is, immediately after the outbreak of hostilities in Ukraine.

Mr. Voylukov believes that the “cash at the checkout” service is more profitable for the bank than installing an ATM in the store, which must be serviced, collected, and paid for renting space: “And in the current conditions there is a problem with spare parts, prices are rising in the collection market, and stores can raise rents.”

Sberbank clarified to Kommersant that “there is no goal of replacing ATMs with a service for withdrawing cash in stores.” “The development of the service at a point without an ATM allows us to improve territorial accessibility, and placement at a point with an ATM allows us to take over some of the transactions with a small check, which frees up ATMs for customers with a large check,” explained the bank. And VTB says that the “cash at the counter” service is not in demand among its clients and the bank plans to develop the ATM network: “Most of our ATMs are located in bank branches, in the future we plan to increase their number in shopping centers and other places with high traffic “

Maxim Builov