Blog Posts

Oct 13 2014
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Better ATM Services Partners with Genmega

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We are pleased to announce that Better ATM Services recently entered into a contract agreement with ATM manufacturer Genmega, which will enable all Genmega ATMs with the capability to dispense prepaid gift cards and other prepaid media directly from the cash dispenser.

Once development is complete, each ATM purchased from Genmega will have the card-dispensing technology built in and ready to be activated. This will streamline the process and reduce implementation costs as ISOs and ATM owners look to add the card-dispensing capability to their fleet of ATMs. The technology is projected to launch in Genmega machines in Q1 of 2015. Read More

Apr 30 2014
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ATM Marketplace: Tax every ATM transaction? That’s your solution?

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If you haven’t seen the news by now, yet another small economy has fallen to the level of taxing money. Jamaica has announced that a tax will be imposed every time citizens access their own money. This means that every time a Jamaican uses an ATM, that transaction will include a tax.

Might this become the trendy new solution for dozens of countries facing economic duress? Before you dismiss the thought, look at what’s already happening. We’ve seen Cyprus tax people by claiming a significant percentage of all funds residing in bank accounts. Just last December, international news headlines trumpeted Brazil’s tax plan for ATM users — “Brazilians to Pay More to Shop Abroad as ATM Tax Surges 1,600 percent.”

Here in the U.S., one congressman took an equally interesting approach. Representative Chaka Fattah, D-Pa., introduced a bill, “Debt Free America Act,” that would have eliminated all federal taxes on individuals and corporations and would have replaced them with a revenue-generating system based on transaction fees. Read More

Mar 06 2014
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ATM Marketplace: It’s time for my bank to reinvent how it helps me manage my money

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It’s all about data isn’t it — big data, omnichannel data, and on it goes. But the truth of the matter is that there are some more pragmatic data solutions that would help us all.

I just finished my 2013 taxes. As always, it was a real hassle. One of the things that made it even more cumbersome was the fact that my bank had me move two of my business accounts to a “lower cost” product.

I didn’t realize at the time that this would mean that in so doing I would lose online access to the seven years of transactions they promised to keep electronically for me when I chose to save trees by going “paperless.”

I now have to depend on my own external Quicken records, or worse, request to have printed copies mailed to me from my bank, since they won’t let me download old statements, nor will they simply email me the data. They had to print it and send it by snail mail, which took about a week.

To add insult to injury, one of my credit cards was caught in the “Great Data Breaches of 2013,” and when the bank provided a new card, they again removed old card records from my online history.

All of these issues created problems trusting that I had everything in Quicken properly, as I never did get things to balance out, and have yet to find the time to figure out why.

It‘s time to completely reinvent how banks care for my data and yours, too. Read More

Dec 19 2013
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ATM Marketplace: The Wright Brothers Did It. Could We?

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Imagine our lives today without the gift of flight. While many were involved in one of the greatest achievements in recorded history, we tend to view one particular morning on a beach in Kitty Hawk, N.C., when powered flight was first experienced, as a victory of discovery and innovation for the Wright brothers.

Could the Wright brothers have done that today? Could we see them testing a newfangled vehicle of flight on a public beach with curious observers standing on the nearby dunes? If you or I were to try something like that today, we would likely face numerous barriers of special approvals, insurance, public hearings, and a likely unwelcome visit by law enforcement officials. Then, we would need to engage in incessant efforts to convince the non-visionaries in civic power to allow us to take several creative steps … testing and learning from each trial and failure.

During my own career, I’ve witnessed this process get more and more difficult. But I was heartened and encouraged a few weeks ago when the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau released a process with the potential to spawn new thinking that will benefit consumers and reduce resistance to innovation. Read More

Oct 31 2013
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From Russia with Love

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This post by Todd Nuttall, CEO of Better ATM Services, first appeared on www.atmmarketplace.com.

Leo Tolstoy had it right. A century after his death, I find myself marveling at the stark contrasts in a country still wrestling with the evolving payments industries.

I just returned from a speaking engagement at the Fifth International PLUS Forum Cash Circulation + Self-service Banking and Retail 2013 in Moscow. What a dichotomy.

Here you have the younger population already embracing smart phones, but prepaids are, in essence, still a world away. ATMs are the lifeblood of the average citizen, who seems caught between two realities — the old way and what we in the U.S. take for granted as a part of everyday life. Read More

Oct 03 2013
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Are You Surprised?

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This post by Todd Nuttall, CEO of Better ATM Services, first appeared on www.atmmarketplace.com.

Did you see the story a few weeks ago about ATMs that dispense clean water? The story out of India detailed the installation of clean water dispensers attached to ATM-like machines where people desperate for clean water in a remote town in India can now get clean water for only one rupee. Read More

Jul 08 2013
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There’s a Tremor in the Force and It’s Emanating from Connecticut

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This post by Todd Nuttall, CEO of Better ATM Services, first appeared on www.atmmarketplace.com.

Market forces often collide, some resulting in tremors that portend things to come. The recent passage by the Connecticut General Assembly of legislation in favor of adopting new requirements for many prepaid products could be a harbinger of things to come. Read More

Jun 08 2013
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The Real Lessons from Cyprus

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This post by Todd Nuttall, CEO of Better ATM Services, first appeared on www.atmmarketplace.com.

People queued up outside Cyprus banks and withdrew all the cash they could — until the machines were empty. Bank accounts were no longer sacrosanct as hard-earned funds were tapped to bail out a downwardly spiraling economy.

Now that we’ve had time to digest what has happened, what does it mean to us in the U.S. — halfway around the world? Clearly, I’m not suggesting that the Cyprus scenario will happen here, but there are lessons to be learned. Read More