Non-final working translation

In order for people in Germany to be able to use cash as a means of payment and store of value, it must be available via points of access to cash such as ATMs and bank counters. However, the number of ATMs and bank branches in Germany has been declining significantly for some years now. And even though, according to a Bundesbank public survey, the majority of the population in Germany report having an overall easy route to the nearest ATM or bank counter, the share of people finding it more difficult to obtain cash has recently risen significantly. Against this background, this article presents an analysis of the availability and reachability of cash withdrawal facilities in Germany. How are points of access to cash distributed across municipalities? On average, how far do people live from their nearest cash withdrawal facility? And is access to cash guaranteed in both urban and rural areas?

Around 6,000 municipalities with a total of 80.7 million inhabitants have at least one ATM or bank counter. However, 3.6 million people in Germany have to leave their own community in order to obtain cash from a credit institution. Evaluations of routes between places of residence and the nearest cash withdrawal facility show that people live on average 1.4 kilometres from the banking industry’s nearest point of access to cash. 95.3% of the population has an ATM or bank counter within 5 kilometres of their home and only 0.3% of the total population has to travel more than 10 kilometres to obtain cash from one of Germany’s credit institutions.

In urban areas, the average distance to the nearest cash withdrawal location is shorter than in rural areas. While the nearest bank counter or ATM in urban regions is 1.1 kilometres away on average, those living rurally have to travel 1.9 kilometres on average. In total, 90.3% of the rural population have access to an ATM or bank counter within 5 kilometres, in comparison with 98.1% of the urban population.

Retailers’ provision of cash withdrawal services complements the credit institution infrastructure. In addition to sourcing from ATMs and bank branches, the public can obtain cash at certain points of sale. The average distance to the nearest cash withdrawal facility drops from 1.4 kilometres to 1.2 kilometres if points of sale are taken into account along with ATMs and bank counters.

Notwithstanding the observed reduction in ATMs and bank branches and the deteriorating perception of cash availability among the general public, these results paint a picture of an overall dense network of cash withdrawal facilities in Germany. Access to cash therefore appears to be guaranteed for the German population at present. In order for the freedom of choice between cash and digital means of payment to endure, infrastructure for the supply of cash must remain intact in future. As part of the Eurosystem’s cash strategy, the Bundesbank is committed to ensuring that cash remains available as a payment method and store of value.

A well-developed cash infrastructure is necessary for cash to be used as a means of payment and store of value. The Bundesbank has a statutory mandate to supply cash in Germany. Its tasks include supplying credit institutions with banknotes and coins, which in turn supply consumers with cash at bank branches and ATMs.

Members of the public use this banking industry cash infrastructure to cover most of their cash needs. ATMs are by far the most important withdrawal facilities in Germany. 1 In a representative public survey carried out by the Bundesbank, 96% of respondents used ATMs for cash withdrawals and 78% of the total amount of cash withdrawn was taken out at ATMs. 2 Bank counters have recently regained importance following a decline during the coronavirus pandemic. Their share of withdrawals rose from 11% in 2021 to 13% in 2023. In addition, points of sale have emerged as an additional important facility in recent years. There, consumers make 9% of their total withdrawals. 3

Credit institutions are closing more and more bank branches and ATMs. The number of bank branches more than halved between 2002 and 2023, going from around 53,000 to approximately 21,000. By contrast, the number of ATMs initially rose, reaching around 59,000 in 2018. Since then, however, a steady decline has been observed here, too – there are around 51,000 ATMs at present. This dismantling of cash infrastructure can be traced back to various developments. The long-standing trend towards closing bank branches is likely, amongst other factors, to be due to cost pressures in the banking sector and the increasing prevalence of online banking. 4 The phenomenon of robbers blowing up ATMs is also likely to have accelerated the dismantling of cash infrastructure in cases where damaged ATMs are not put back into operation due to the risk of repeated attacks and therefore the need for costly security measures. 5

At the same time, access to cash is increasingly perceived as difficult. In 2023, the Bundesbank once again conducted a representative public survey on payment behaviour. According to the results of this payment behaviour study, the perceived difficulty of obtaining cash has increased lately. The proportion of respondents who found it fairly difficult or very difficult to get to an ATM or bank counter more than doubled from 6% in 2021 to 15% in 2023. This development affects people in urban and rural regions alike. 6

These developments prompt the following analysis of the availability and reachability of cash access points. The first part of the analysis consists of an examination of the availability of bank branches, ATMs and points of sale offering cash withdrawal in municipalities. Then, location data for points of access to cash are combined with population information in 100×100 metre grid cells. Traffic routes and travel times to the nearest cash access points are calculated for each of the roughly 3.6 million inhabited grid cells in Germany, creating an understanding of the reachability of cash withdrawal facilities by means of private motor transport. For the purposes of comparison, access to cash in both rural and urban regions will be considered.

In Germany, 63.8% of the population live in urban regions, which make up only 30.7% of all municipalities. Around two-thirds of the population in Germany live in urban regions, which make up 3,374 municipalities. The 16 metropolises alone are home to around 15.1 million people, representing 17.9% of the total population. With around 21.4 million inhabitants, medium-sized cities and their peripheral urban areas are the most populous type of space within the urban regions. By contrast, 7,616 of the 10,990 total municipalities are counted as rural regions, and are home to around 30.5 million people. Around 4 out of 5 rural communities are classified as small-town or village areas, which illustrates the predominant spatial structure within the rural regions.

Members of the public can withdraw cash at a total of 64,458 different withdrawal facilities nationwide. 33,169 of the locations are operated by credit institutions or independent ATM providers. 7 Of these, 19,133 are bank branches. At least one ATM is available at all recorded banking industry locations. 8 In addition, there are 31,289 locations where cash can be obtained at a point of sale. Around one-third of the locations offer both cashback and cash-in-shop services. 9 A total of 29,481 locations offer cashback, while 12,319 locations offer cash-in-shop.

Most people in Germany can obtain cash within the borders of their home municipality. Around 80.7 million people, or 95.7% of the total population, live in municipalities with a bank counter or ATM. 10 Conversely, however, there is no bank-supported point of access to cash available in 4,947 municipalities, covering a total of 3.6 million inhabitants. 44.5% of municipalities with a combined population of 78.4 million offer access to cash at the point of sale. Only in 166 municipalities, with around 317,000 inhabitants, is it possible to obtain cash at a point of sale but not at a bank counter or ATM. As a withdrawal option, the point of sale therefore generally complements cash withdrawal services offered by the banking industry and is only in exceptional cases the sole withdrawal option within a municipality. 11 From the Bundesbank’s perspective, the supply of cash by retailers can complement the banking industry’s supply in a meaningful way, but cannot replace it. This is because the Bundesbank pays out banknotes and coins to credit institutions, meaning only the banking industry can bring fresh banknotes and coins into circulation. Moreover, retailers’ offerings are not fully comparable to the banking industry’s in terms of opening hours, available amounts and denominations, for example. 12

In urban and rural areas, the majority of the population lives in municipalities with a bank counter or ATM. Within the urban regions, 98.0% of the population live in municipalities with a bank-based withdrawal facility. In rural regions, this is 91.7% of the population. A point of sale offering cash withdrawals is available to 96.9% of the urban population and 85.9% of the rural population. The banking industry’s cash supply services in rural regions are thus much more widespread than the retail sector’s services. Around 0.9 million urban residents have no cash withdrawal options within their municipality. At 2.4 million, more than twice as many rural inhabitants live in a municipality without its own cash withdrawal facility.

It is small-town and village areas in particular which lack cash withdrawal facilities. Of the roughly 0.9 million urban residents without a point of access to cash within their own municipality, around 0.8 million live in small-town or village areas. Of the 4,781 municipalities in Germany without a cash withdrawal facility, 3,503 are rural small towns or villages. 93.2% of the 3.3 million living in such areas – 2.2 million people – have no point of access to cash within their municipality.

The analyses on ease of access to cash are based on a densely woven network of grid cells and route calculations. Germany’s inhabited areas can be divided into around 3.6 million grid cells each measuring 100×100 metres. Coordinates for the centre of the grid and information about the number of inhabitants are available for each cell. 13  To analyse reachability of cash access points, the routes from each grid cell to the nearest cash withdrawal facility in terms of travel time are identified. To this end, routes to at least five nearby banking industry cash access points and points of sale are calculated for each cell, starting from its centre. 14 The route with the shortest travel time is selected from among these options. The route profile only includes routes that can be taken using private motor transport, as a representative Bundesbank survey indicates that members of the general public prefer to travel by car, motorcycle or scooter to cash withdrawal facilities. 15

The average distance between home and the nearest cash withdrawal facility within a region takes into account the distribution of the population across the grid cells. In some cases, population numbers vary greatly between the grid cells. All distances and travel times between grid cell and withdrawal facility are therefore weighted by the given grid cell's share in the total population of its respective region. The population-weighted average distances and travel times then provide a representative overview of the average distance between home and the nearest cash withdrawal facility and thus the regional reachability of cash access points. 16

In Germany, people live 1.4 kilometres on average from the nearest ATM or bank counter. 17 The car journey there takes around three minutes on average. This means that around six minutes of pure travel time are required for the round trip to a cash access point operated by the banking industry. This is in line with the results of a representative survey, in which respondents estimated that it took them an average of nine minutes to withdraw cash at ATMs or bank counters. 18 People have to travel 1.7 kilometres on average to the nearest point of sale offering cashback or cash-in-shop services.

The majority of the population lives no further than a kilometre from an ATM or bank branch. 95.3% of the total population live no more than 5 kilometres away from the banking industry’s nearest cash withdrawal facility. Only around 0.3% of the total population have to travel more than 10 kilometres using private motor transport in order to reach a cash access point belonging to a bank or savings bank.

Access to ATMs in Germany is similar to that in other countries. The methodology used in the analysis to take account of traffic routes and the spatial distribution of the population is increasingly becoming the international standard. 19 For Austria, the average distance from home to the nearest ATM is 1.2 kilometres, with 66.6% of the total population living no further than 1 kilometre and 97.1% no further than 5 kilometres from an ATM. 20 In Switzerland, too, people live an average of 1.2 kilometres away from an ATM. 21 People in Canada have to travel an average of 2 kilometres to withdraw cash from an ATM. 91% of the population live no further than 5 kilometres from an ATM. 22

In Germany, most people dwelling in urbanised regions live around a kilometre away from the banking industry’s nearest cash withdrawal facility. For example, the distance to the nearest bank counter or ATM in large cities that do not count as a metropolis is 0.9 kilometres on average. Around two-thirds of the population of these areas live no further than 1 kilometre from a cash withdrawal facility. Residents of central cities in rural regions live only slightly further away from a banking industry-operated cash access point, at 1.1 kilometres on average. Here, around 3 out of 5 people have to drive no more than 1 kilometre to reach the nearest bank counter or ATM. Turning to medium-sized cities, the average distances to a banking industry-operated cash withdrawal facility are 1.2 kilometres in urban regions and 1.5 kilometres in rural regions.

Residents of small-town and village areas have to go the furthest to access cash. These inhabitants, of whom there are roughly 18.5 million, have to travel more than 2 kilometres on average to the nearest point of access to cash belonging to a bank or savings bank. Of the 5.3 million people living on the urban periphery, 39.3% live no further than 1 kilometre from a bank branch or an ATM. Around 68.2% of them live no more than 3 kilometres away. By contrast, 63.9% of people living in small towns and villages in rural regions have a bank-based point of access to cash within a radius of 3 kilometres. 23 In these sparsely populated areas, the average distance to the nearest point of sale offering cash withdrawal is longer than to the cash infrastructure provided by the banking industry. This indicates that, overall, access to important infrastructure is more difficult in these areas. This is true not only of access to cash, but for other day-to-day activities too.

When accessing cash, the point of sale supplements the banking industry’s range of services, but is not a substitute. Across Germany, 57.7% of the population live within a kilometre of a bank counter or ATM. In some regions, the point of sale shortens the route to the nearest point of access to cash, meaning that cashback and cash-in-shop services help facilitate access to cash. For example, the share of the population with access to a cash withdrawal facility within a radius of 1 kilometre increases by 9.9 percentage points to 67.6% if, in addition to the cash withdrawal points provided by the banking industry, the withdrawal options offered by the retail sector are also taken into account. However, the point of sale is not a substitute for bank counters or ATMs. For example, much of the cash withdrawn at the point of sale does not have to be checked beforehand, meaning that cash that is no longer fit for circulation may continue to circulate unchecked. By contrast, credit institutions can and must make a proper check of the quality and authenticity of cash. Credit institutions’ close involvement in the cash cycle thus remains essential, especially because the services offered by retailers primarily facilitate access to cash in urban regions and where distances tend to be shorter anyway. 24 For the remaining areas, such supplementary withdrawal options only marginally improve ease of access to cash.

Although the majority of people in Germany have a cash access point nearby, many feel that it is becoming increasingly difficult to access cash. According to the results presented, a dense network of cash withdrawal facilities appears to be available in Germany on the whole. Despite this, the share of people who find it fairly difficult or very difficult to get to an ATM or bank counter has gone up significantly of late, rising from 6% in 2021 to 15% in 2023. 25 It is possible that the subjective assessment of the outlay involved in obtaining cash is influenced by factors that are not reflected in the geographical analysis. Anecdotal evidence suggests that ATMs are increasingly being locked outside of business hours to protect against explosive attacks, making them less available. In addition, the closure of bank branches and the scaling back of ATMs may have meant longer distances to travel in some cases. The public’s perception that access to cash is becoming more difficult is one reason to continue analysing the availability of cash in Germany in the future using various approaches.

The geographical availability of cash withdrawal facilities has also deteriorated somewhat of late. The Bundesbank has already analysed the geographical availability of cash withdrawal facilities in Germany in an earlier study, but the results are not directly comparable to the results presented here because the methodology has improved since then. The supplementary information below explores developments in the cash infrastructure between 2021 and 2023. It reveals that the high degree of availability and reachability of cash withdrawal facilities within municipalities has deteriorated moderately between these two reference years.

Cash is appreciated in Germany as a means of payment and store of value. Although consumers in Germany are paying with cashless methods more and more often, cash remains the most widely used means of payment. People in Germany settle around 51% of everyday transactions using cash. 26 In times of crisis, amongst other situations, cash is in demand as a store of value – as suggested by the significant increase in euro banknote circulation during the coronavirus pandemic, for example. 27 Cash reserves also allow people to get by when cashless payment systems are down owing to technical disruptions or other crisis situations.

To ensure that people in Germany remain free to choose between cash and other means of payment and that cash can be used in times of crisis, reliable access to cash is needed. As part of the Eurosystem’s cash strategy, the Bundesbank is committed to ensuring the ongoing freedom of choice between cash and digital payment methods. 28 When it comes to accessing cash, consumers rely especially heavily on the cash infrastructure operated by credit institutions, which provides them with more than 90% of the cash they withdraw in total.

At present, the general public in Germany can source cash from a dense network of cash access points. There are ATMs or bank counters in 6,043 out of 10,990 municipalities. Around 96% of the total population lives in these communities. However, around 3.6 million people in Germany have to travel outside of their home municipality in order to obtain cash from a credit institution. On average, members of the general public live 1.4 kilometres from the nearest point of access to cash operated by the banking industry. 95.3% of the total population have a bank counter or an ATM within 5 kilometres of their home. Bank counters and ATMs in municipalities are less common and more difficult to access in rural regions than in urban regions. For example, residents of small towns and villages in rural regions have to travel around 2.7 kilometres on average to a banking industry-operated cash withdrawal facility, compared with an average of 0.8 kilometres in metropolises. The option to withdraw cash at the point of sale is also widespread in Germany and complements the banking industry’s range of services. Throughout Germany, the average distance to the nearest point of sale offering cash withdrawal is 1.7 kilometres.

There are signs that the availability of cash is trending downwards. The Bundesbank commissioned a study entitled “Cash of the future” to take a systematic look at the future of cash. The study explored three possible future scenarios. In all of these scenarios, access to cash deteriorates and its acceptance and use decrease. 29 The decline in the number of bank branches and ATMs as well as the growing proportion of people who find that more effort is required to access cash support the conjecture that good access to cash in Germany might no longer be a matter of course in the future. 30

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