Card payment instead of cash
There are fewer and fewer ATMs in Germany
May 19, 2024, 9:26 a.m
Cashless payments are gradually becoming more popular in this country too. This has consequences: There are fewer and fewer ATMs. The demand for alternative ways to withdraw money is high.
The number of ATMs in Germany has fallen in recent years. At the end of 2023, the savings banks were still operating 21,000 ATMs nationwide, as the German Savings Banks and Giro Association announced. In 2018 there were 25,500. The number of ATMs at Volksbanks and Raiffeisenbanks has developed similarly: from around 18,100 in 2018 it fell to almost 14,700 last year.
According to a table from the Volksbanken and Raiffeisenbanken, the number of all ATMs in Germany was around 51,800 in 2023. That is significantly less than in the record year 2015 with around 61,100 machines, but also significantly more than in the 1990s. At that time, the number of ATMs was well below 50,000.
According to the German Savings Banks and Giro Association, the number of withdrawals from savings banks has also decreased since 2016. At the same time, the average withdrawal amount increased. “For safety reasons, we cannot provide any more precise information on details that would indicate filling quantities,” it said.
Withdrawing cash in supermarkets and other shops is becoming increasingly popular in Germany. In 2019, retailers paid out 2.23 billion euros to customers, and in 2023 it was more than 12.3 billion euros. The service is offered by the food retailers Rewe and Edeka, drugstores such as DM and Rossmann and also hardware stores, among others.
The fact that 50 euro notes are dispensed particularly often at ATMs is due to their very large number: the 50 euro note is much more common than any other bank note in the Eurosystem. According to a Bundesbank report, there were around 14.4 billion 50 euro notes in 2022 – compared to just 2.1 billion 5 euro notes and just over 3 billion 10 euro notes.