I’ll be coming back to this in a bit - but I needed to post the info.
Let me quote the part of interest here.
On the matter of the availability of cash at ABMs, the central bank said in the new standards that it firstly wants to see at least 90 per cent of ABMs working all the time. And those that are operational must be working at least 95 per cent of the time. In addition, machines located in urban or resort areas must not be out of cash for more than 60 consecutive minutes, while the time out of cash for ABMs located in rural areas should be no more than 180 minutes or three hours.
I don’t think I’ll have to screenshot this page for when it becomes a foot-in-mouth thing, but let me give some details on what’s going on.
I have some knowledge based on publicly available details on the banking services locally and overseas. It’s impossible to meet those standards locally based on geography, demographics and other factors outside of the control of the banks.
Let’s imagine a far location like Kellits for example. Let’s say the 4 main hubs for banks may be Kingston, Mandeville, Negril/Sav and MoBay. It’s almost 2 hours from Kingston according to Google Maps, and that doesn’t take into consideration traffic or road conditions - I won’t even get into the distance from the other locations. It’s not feasible for any financial institution to pay a security company for the number of trips required on a daily or weekly basis to reload cash in an ATM.
Let’s look at the security companies as well. Government prevents security companies from acquiring high-powered rifles to combat criminals - yet criminals have high powered rifles. There’s no way they can compete. Will the government security forces be escorting the private companies to these sites?
This is rather typical of government. Someone probably went to an ATM and was frustrated to find it out of cash then blew the idea out their nose - or some other orifice. “One does not simply” put out a mandate without doing the research on what the industry or climate is like. But again - typical of government bodies.
I had to rush because I’ve got to get back to work, but - thoughts on this?