Deal with TRM Unit Gives Select-A-Branch Access to National Market

Select-A-Branch ATM Network LLC, the startup that offers electronic multibank branding on its ATMs, is about to bust out of the Northeast thanks to a new pact with TRM Corp.'s Access To Money network. The exclusive distribution agreement-in-principle deal would give Select-A-Branch potential access to about 3,000 ATMs in convenience stores and other retail locations throughout the country. “We're doing this so that we can become a national network,” Dan Stechow, chief operating officer of King of Prussia, Pa.-based Select-A-Branch, tells Digital Transactions News. “We're no longer a sales pitch and a novel idea.” Launched about 2 ½ years ago on a business model of deploying ATMs that offer debit card holders from multiple financial institutions a transaction experience free of surcharges and identical to the one they'd have at one of their own bank or credit union's ATMs, Select-A-Branch currently has 19 financial-institution members and about 175 machines. Most are in New York City-area McDonald's Corp. restaurants, in rest stops along the Pennsylvania Turnpike, or in other locations in the Northeast (Digital Transactions News, July 15). “That was really their test market, now they're ready to roll out,” says Doug Falcone, chief operating officer of Access To Money. For Access to Money, the potential for transaction volumes from customers of Select-A-Branch's bank and credit-union members “leverages our hardware relationships, our processing relationships, our armored-car relationships,” says Falcone. He says Select-A-Branch's chief strength is its technology, while Access To Money brings sales and marketing expertise to the deal. According to Falcone, Access To Money will own and manage the ATMs running on the Select-A-Branch system. The companies did not reveal revenue arrangements. Access To Money is an ATM independent sales organization that Portland, Ore.-based TRM, a non-bank ATM deployer, bought in April. At the time, Access To Money had 4,249 transacting ATMs. Falcone says about 3,000 of Access To Money's ATMs in convenience stores/gas stations chains and other retail locations would be candidates for the Select-A-Branch platform, though he won't identify retailers. Stechow expects that the higher retail deployments will attract more financial institutions to his network. He says Select-A-Branch has asked financial institutions why they haven't joined. “The almost universal answer is more locations, more locations,” he says. Select-A-Branch says that between March and August transaction volume at Select-A-Branch ATMs in 59 New York McDonald's locations grew 35%, volume the franchisees linked to a 1% increase in store sales. Falcone says implementing the Select-A-Branch system, which displays the ATM screen options, logos, and other graphics of the cardholder's bank, may require Access To Money to upgrade some of its machines to Microsoft Corp.'s Windows XP operating system. But he says the cost of such machines has been coming down as the Windows platform continues to gain share in the ATM industry. Select-A-Branch early next year plans to begin testing 19-inch video monitors on ATMs that will show advertisements for financial institutions and have a running “ticker” at the bottom naming the banks and credit unions whose services are available surcharge-free at that machine. When a cardholder is using the machine, the entire monitor will display the logo of the customer's bank. The monitors, which cost about $2,000, will first be tested in some New York City-area machines, Stechow says. The two companies still need to give their pending agreement final approval.