Focus brought this up today.....one of the monthly activities that most Germans go through....is the act of picking up cash out of an ATM.
I will admit that most Germans will use their bank card, and charge probably 90-percent of what they do through the month, on the bank card. Gas, groceries, beer, dinners, etc. But most Germans will carry around fifty to a hundred Euro (working-class folks) for little things like coffee, snacks, bus tickets, or such.
The German bank folks are admitting that the ATM machines are a maintenance-hog, and a typical machine will cost them on operations, loading, and repairs....around 20k to 25k Euro a year. The suggestion by the industry is that either transaction fees will come into play or fewer ATMs.
One of the other odd changes to German culture which has started up in the past two years.....involves grocery stores offering a service as you buy groceries, to get cost-free Euro with the purchase. So a guy will go in and buy his fifty Euro of groceries, and then opt for 50 to 250 Euro in cash....involving no extra fee.
Part of this ATM story also involves smaller and more rural communities having no ATM machines existing anymore. You could wake up one day in village X....400 residents, and the nearest machine which did exist eight minutes driving over on the other side of the valley in village Y....has been shut down. So then your next option is a 2nd longer drive (15 minute) to village Z.
This is one of those odd things about change in Germany. In the 1970s, there were so few ATM machines around, and significant growth occurred....to the point that everyone had an ATM within easy distance of their home. Maybe in highly urbanized areas, that's still possible. But the future here is fewer ATMs in existence.
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