Suncorp is leading the industry-wide cull of ATM machines across the country, after slashing its proprietary network by 60 per cent in the 12 months to the end of June.
Most banks are paring their ATM fleets as demand for cash declines and fee-free customer access to all bank-owned machines erodes the profitability of operating large networks.
While major banks such as NAB and ANZ agitate for the formation of a utility company to provide a universally branded ATM service to all bank customers in Australia, Banking Day understands that strategic talks between the major banks have broken down.
The main obstacle to getting a utility off the ground is CBA, which wants to continue operating its big fleet of automatic tellers under its proprietary brand.
While the other major banks see greater value in pooling their ATM services, CBA believes it continues to derive strategic marketing value from maintaining a differentiated service.
CBA was the only major bank to increase the size of its fleet last year after it added six machines to its network.
The bank had 3,459 ATMs operating on June 30.
Banking Day has obtained a confidential banking industry report that gives granular insights into the reconfiguration of ATM fleets at individual banks since last year.
The report, which was intended to only circulate among senior executives of leading financial institutions, identifies the banks that have aggressively cut their ATM networks.
Suncorp withdrew 311 ATMS from service last year and now has a proprietary fleet of only 211 machines.
It has since joined the RediATM network, which also reined in coverage last year.
RediATM, which includes proprietary fleets operated by NAB and Bank of Queensland, ditched 124 machines and now has 2899 ATMs.
While Suncorp was the most aggressive culler of proprietary ATMs in Australia, most major and regional banks also downsized their fleets.
Westpac was another big cutter after withdrawing machines at 266 locations in the year ending in June.
That represented a 9 per cent reduction to the bank's fleet to 2,676 automatic tellers.
ANZ pruned its network by 2.5 per cent or 58 machines and has 2,294 ATMs in service.
Bendigo and Adelaide Bank also cut deeply.
The Victorian-based regional withdraw 53 machines from its network and now has 704 branded ATMs.
Another factor driving the withdrawal of ATM services has been the Reserve Bank's decision to introduce a new generation of banknotes over the next 12 months.
A new $50 note will be placed in circulation from this morning and most leading banks say their ATMs have been upgraded to process the new bill.
Preliminary testing of the new banknotes last year revealed that thousands of older automatic teller machines were unable to read the bills.
Banks such as NAB and Suncorp, which had been operating ageing fleets, were forced to either invest in new machines or retire old technology.
In many cases old machines were retired without being replaced.
The net effect of fleet reconfigurations across the industry last year was that the number of ATMs operating in Australia declined by 1,155 machines to 30,940.