Jamaica National Building Society (JNBS) is agressively expanding its automated teller machines (ATMs) network.

JNBS general manager for community banking and ATM services Philip Bernard said the firm has more than doubled the number of its banking machines since 2004 as part of a thrust to expand its service offerings, particularly in underserved communities.

With JNBS now having slightly more than an eighth of the island’s ATM total, the machines are being deployed because of their efficiency in assisting customers to access their bank accounts to carry out banking transactions, such as cash withdrawals and checking account balances within their own time frames. The ATMs allow users to access teller services without the associated branch infrastructure, and in many cases, on a 24 hour basis.

“Our aim is to make significant improvements in the services we offer our members,” said Bernard in an interview last week.

“Our members appreciate interacting with tellers, but the convenience of an ATM transaction wins them over,” he added.

Jamaica National has 45 ATMs installed across the island, with the introduction of machines at the Browns Town and Christiana branches during May of this year. The company’s first ATM was introduced in 1997, a decade behind the first appearance of the machines in the island, and by 2004, the building society was operating 20 machines.

A strategic decision was taken to grow the network mainly through the organisation’s existing infrastructure, Bernard said.

“We decided to go the route of branch rollouts for the service, and about 50 per cent of JNBS branches had ATMs in 2004,” he noted.

He said machines can be serviced by staff within the JNBS network, adding that they share the existing infrastructure and as a result their maintenance costs are lower. He noted that internal records show that the existing customer traffic around these outlets also indicate that their utilization rate is higher.

“A critical point is that we have had requests from our members for this service to be added at other locations,” he indicated. “Therefore the demand is there.”

An ATM facility was set up at JNBS’ Highgate branch, now a Money Shop, in November. And recently, an ATM was constructed at the JNBS branch at the University of the West Indies, which had its soft opening in May. This was followed by new facilities at the Osbourne Store and May Pen branches.

Some JNBS ATMs have been installed in association with external partners, where significant market opportunities have been identified, Bernard said. These include the service now offered in Vineyard Town and Cross Roads in St. Andrew.

These type of partnership will be expanded with new JNBS ATMs being put in place by the end of the next quarter in the parish of St Andrew at the main office of the Ministry of Agriculture. Jamaica National branches in Lucea, Browns Town and Christiana will also get expanded services during the same period.

“It makes sense for us to serve more members through these machines,” he declared. “ATMs have proven to be a very satisfactory basis for expansion.”

He pointed out, however, that the total ATM coverage for Jamaica and other entities in the financial sector remains well below that of developed countries, so is still substantially below its potential.

“There is quite a bit more scope for growth in the ATM coverage level,” he noted. “We see a lot of room for expansion, based on population shifts and user demands.”