ATMs were malfunctioning much more often in September than banks had promised. More than one in twenty Geldmaat machines turned out to be broken in Brabant (6.4 percent). This is evident from the data that regional broadcasters collected together with the NOS.
Brabant has a total of 509 ATMs. In recent years, those who want to withdraw money have had fewer and fewer ATMs available. Banks have closed branches and removed ATMs. To ensure that cash remains available, banks agreed that on average no more than 2.5 percent of the remaining ATMs should be out of service.
That target was far from being achieved; in Brabant it was more than twice as high. An even stricter standard applies to vending machines where there is no other vending machine nearby. There, a maximum of 2 percent of the machines may be broken on average.
Residents of Nieuwendijk recognize the problems with non-working ATMs. The local Geldmaat has been out of order the past seven times. The longest outage lasted two weeks. “He almost never does it,” says one resident. “So I drive to Almkerk, 6 kilometers away, for cash.”
The company that maintains Geldmaat ATMs confirms that there are more malfunctions and acknowledges that the standard that banks have agreed on for the whole of 2023 will be difficult to achieve. That standard was not achieved last year.
“We are doing everything we can to keep the promise,” says Peggy Corstens of Geldmaat. According to her, there were an extra number of disruptions in September because there were problems with a specific part of some vending machines. That part was difficult to obtain and therefore malfunctions could not be resolved quickly.
“Delivery times are long,” says Corstens. “This means that some machines are out of use for longer than desirable. We hope that the problems will be resolved within a few weeks.”
The Ministry of Finance regrets that the services are not up to standard and is working on a law that will force banks to make ATMs more available.