Cardtronics Inc. today announced that it had signed its first managed-services agreements with credit unions in Puerto Rico, a step one executive said represents a turning point for the island's financial institutions.
The Houston-based independent ATM deployer will manage ATMs for Cooperativa San Rafael, GerenCoop and PuebloCoop. The management services Cardtronics will provide include ATM placement, transaction processing, cash management, customer service, maintenance and more. Cardtronics signed three separate long-term contracts with the credit unions, said Nick Pappathopoulos, a Cardtronics spokesperson.
"With these relationships, Cardtronics celebrates a milestone of its first ATM management-services contracts with Puerto Rican financial institutions, which have traditionally taken a do-it-yourself approach to operating an ATM network," said Cardtronics officials.
Rafael Mercado, president of Cooperativa San Rafael, said the agreement with Cardtronics was necessary and will be beneficial.
"Looking outside our own organization for the hardware, transaction processing and ancillary services necessary to operate an ATM network marks a point of departure for Cooperativa San Rafael and the Puerto Rican financial-services market at large," Mercado said. "Launching a new ATM network strategy with the assistance of Cardtronics delivers the immediate benefit of reduced operating costs, passing ATM regulatory concerns to Cardtronics and gaining flexibility to time-efficiently and cost-efficiently grow our ATM network."
Mike Clinard, president of Cardtronics Global Services, said the agreement will reduce the costs associated with maintaining an ATM presence.
"Beyond near-term cost savings, aligning with Cardtronics gives all three credit unions new-found flexibility to expand their ATM fleet without capital investment and possibly reduce expenditures around vault cash services," Clinard said. The agreements also will increase the brands' visibility and widen the availability of surcharge-free cash access to members, he added.
Cardtronics is currently deploying the ATMs for the credit unions and the overall size of the deployment for each credit union is not yet known.
