ATMs distribution in Egypt

Blog

ATMs distribution in Egypt

Spread the love

Automated Teller Machines (ATMs) enable customers to perform financial transactions on their own eliminating the need to wait in line for support by an official bank teller. Having an ATM nearby allows customers to cover the most frequently needed banking functions such as balance inquiry, cash deposit, cash withdrawal. In some banks, customers can transfer money, pay bills, or exchange currently through an ATM too.

While digital payment is increasing, the vast majority of daily transactions are still cash dependent and would still need the customer to withdraw and deposit money regularly into and from his bank account. In addition, There are more than 42% [1] of Egyptians that do not have access to the internet, and ATMs are the most suitable way to be included in the banking sector if there is no branch nearby.

The number of ATMs in Egypt is relatively low compared to other counties on the same development level. According to the World Bank, there are 20 atms available for every 100,000 residents of Egypt as of 2019. The numbers are low compared to 60 atms per 100,000 resident in UAE, and 54 per 100,000 resident in Indonesia. A more recent news article estimates the total number of ATMs in Egypt to be 14918 as of 2021 [3].

ATMs are the physical touch points between customers and financial institutions. They are supposed to be located in areas where many customers or potential customers live, work or shop. In addition to popularity, safety and power, and connectivity are major influential factors on where to place an ATM. The selection of an ATM location heavily influences how many customers will use it. Banks can expect 1% – 3% of the daily foot traffic passing through the ATM to use it [4]. This means for a busy corridor or street intersection where there are 10,000 people passing through daily, the atm can be used between 100 and 300 times a day.

In this article, we study the geographic distribution of ATMs and their coverage and look into different banks’ coverage. In addition, detail areas with lack of access to a nearby ATM. For the purpose of the analysis, we are using 7699 ATMs distributed across the country by 11 different banks. The data is collected and aggregated from different sources and in some cases, the address is geocoding to find the location of the ATM on the map.

The highest numbers of ATMs concentrations can be found in Cairo, Giza and Alexandria; this follows the economic importance of governorates given that the three governorates top the country’s GDP as per 2015 government report.

https://mped.gov.eg/Governorate?lang=en

Dokki, Giza administrative division in Giza is the most covered level 3 administrative boundary with ATMs followed by Sheraton El-matar, Nozha Kism.

The target age group benefiting from banks ATMs is anyone aged 18 or above which is the age allowed to have a bank account. With this in mind, we aggregated the population > 18 across all different administrative divisions.