For those interested, I went to the Intro-80A meeting in NYC today. I took a few notes and observations below. I tried to organize it, but I’m sure there is some rambling in there.

Background:

I went to this meeting to be abreast of the situation within the NY market. Even though my purpose is from the atm advertising side, the issues pertained to the atm industry and identity theft.

If any sort of legislation were to pass in NYC, you could imagine the mirrored effects downstream to other cities.

The council consisted of 4-5, about 60-75 people within the atm business or non-atm industry organizations. The setup was in a congress type setup (this if my first to a public city meeting). Council Members were foot higher, the rest of us sitting.

Registrations (stickers on atms via nyc), would allow a point of contact for atm machines. For those that do not know, many atms in nyc do NOT have stickers on it. Even though this is mandated by many networks, it’s not apparrent in NY. Personally, I thought this was odd while doing my site surveys for atm advertising. Identity theft was the overriding theme, but there just isn’t enough evidence for this (geared towards non-bank atms).

In short, it comes to accountability (who is the contact person of that atm machine). The contact person can be something such as identity theft (which is a weak argument IMO), to something as basic as “who does a consumer contact with any questions pertaining to the atm” (which I think needs to be severely enforced at the atm industry level – whoever that may be).

Speakers:

As for speakers, one of the first men spoke on behalf of weschester county in ny. They enacted this program and are in year 4. There are 1,011 atm registered with the county. The primary owners are cardtronics and marimak (spelling?). An owner/operator pays $75 for 2 years. Any complaints at any of these registered locations would trigger a follow-up from this county’s appropriate agency. With an existing platform and proper progression, it seemed to set a bar for NYC to mirror.

The next set of speakers is from ATM ‘s’ and Service. They are based in NY with about 500 locations. This was the first group to speak on behalf of atm companies. They gave a rather open discussion on how the atm industry/business has oversight within the 5 or so main processors, sponsor banks, along with 300-450 registered ISOs within the US. By having locations in westchester county, they were able to discuss some of the negatives with registration. The main one dealt with the county looking to get all 3rd party items registered (ex. ice cream machines)

The next speaker was the CEO of TRMM/Access to Money (Richard Stern). ATM ‘s’ was the main conversation, there was nothing mentioned by Richard that was primarily new. One item I did not know, their combined organization has over 12,000 atms (owner or operator). They are moving their HQ to cherry hill nj, which I found interesting.

The last speaker was a member of the general council from Cardtronics (Michael Keller). He seemed the most articulate in the room.

Conclusion:

In conclusion, I’m in favor or proper stickers on atm machines. This is basic consumer awareness people!  While many networks/ISOs mandate this, there is zero enforcement of this. ZERO!

As a result, I’m in favor or atm registrations. While it is not a clear cut 100% no brainer, I feel something needs to be done from an accountability standpoint.  This was just the first meeting, I’m sure the progression will cause a tweak to the bill, but ultimately will pass in some capacity.

Ramble over….. coffee is much needed right now!