South Asian, African nations poised for impressive ATM growth

KUALA LUMPUR: The South Asian and African markets have shown potentials for a boom in the automated teller machines (ATMs) due to rapid expansion in the banking services and economies of the countries in the regions.

In a statement yesterday, Retail Banking Research (RBR) said, the world’s more mature markets had shown a slowdown in growth while the emerging markets, such as Myanmar, were set to see the fastest growth over the next five years.

Researcher Rowan Berridge said although most major ATM markets were now growing more slowly or even contracting in some cases, many smaller, developing countries continued to have huge potentials.

“These markets are characterised by a low density of ATMs to population – fewer than 100 machines per million people – but are enjoying rapid economic growth and benefiting from state-driven programmes to increase financial inclusion,” he said.

He said cash was set to remain hugely important in these markets and prospects for growth in ATM deployment were excellent.

RBR said according to its latest report, ‘Global ATM Market and Forecasts to 2022’, the number of number of ATMs in Myanmar grew from zero in 2011 to 2,500 by end-2016, driven by wide-reaching economic reforms.

For Bangladesh, it said, the market has been booming since 2015 when a relaxation in deployment regulations triggered a surge in new installations which showed a few signs of slowing.

“The ATM numbers are forecast to more than doubled in Bangladesh and Myanmar by 2022 to 18,000 and 6,000 respectively,” it said.

For Middle East and Africa, it said, there had been strong growth and this was expected to continue in many African markets.

“Algeria is forecast to see the region’s fastest grwoth in its number of ATMs as banks follow the national postal service in in building coverage rapidly across the country,” it said. — Bernama