AS WE MOVE from cash to cashless, turbo-charged by the pandemic, there is a fundamental challenge to ATM providers like NCR and Diebold Nixdorf. I had this view back in the 1990s - it's just taken a quarter of a century to become a reality. Link, the UK's largest cash machine network, reported a 38% decline in ATM transactions in 2020, caused in large part by the coronavirus crisis as people moved away from using cash. By contrast, in the US, attempts to steal from ATMs jumped near 150% year-on-year, partly because ATMs that previously held $50,000 were now holding almost double that to deal with the pandemic lockdown and delays in refilling. On the other hand, cryptocurrencies, particularly Bit-coin, skyrocketed to a valuation more than 10 times higher than the previous year; and now numerous central banks are rushing to implement and issue digital fiat currencies.
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