Russian banks have not found a domestic replacement for American ATMs, there were simply no devices of the required quality in the required quantity. It is planned to replace the products of American companies with Chinese and Korean counterparts. Izvestia writes about this with reference to representatives of banks.

Representatives of Ak Bars Bank, VTB, UBRD and Zenit told the publication that they are looking for alternatives to American devices. Sberbank and Otkritie also admit that they will start looking for alternatives in the near future. Some financial institutions have already purchased Chinese ATMs, in particular, representatives of the Post Bank and Ak Bars Bank admitted this. The only bank that told the publication about the search for a domestic alternative was Novikombank.

“In Russia, domestic ATMs are also being created, but their full-scale launch requires both investment and time. Chinese ATMs are a clear affordable alternative. The quality of service is unlikely to change for consumers, given that this is a familiar range of ATMs for some banks,” Yegor Krivosheya, Head of Research at the Skolkovo-NES Center for Financial Technology and Digital Economy Research, told the publication.

The leaders of the world and Russian ATM markets before the war with Ukraine were American Diebold Nixdorf and NCR, they accounted for up to 70% of devices inside Russia. According to the Central Bank, about 187.5 thousand ATMs currently operate in the country. After the departure of American companies, it became much more difficult to maintain the operation of devices: the software (software) is not updated, and maintenance has to be carried out using parallel imports.

The Bank of Russia is confident that Russian manufacturers will be able to quickly occupy the niche of the ATM market after the departure of American players. The regulator insists that in some market segments, Russian players occupy a high share, they are competitive both in terms of price and technology. However, no specific examples were given to the publication by the Central Bank.

Russian banks have already encountered problems with ATM networks caused by the inability to update the software of their devices - it is for this reason that the new hundred-ruble bills turned out to be impossible to use to replenish cards at ATMs.