December's cash withdrawals grow 4% - despite snow

Latest LINK figures show that Christmas Eve was busiest day of the year for cash withdrawals

05 January 2010

LINK, the operator of the UK's cash machine network, has reported an increase of 4% in December's LINK cash machine withdrawals compared with December 2008.*

December 2009 saw £10.4 billion withdrawn through the UK's LINK network, an all-time record for a single month.

High growth in early December

The first two weeks in December 2009 saw significant growth compared with 2008 of 7% and 6% respectively.

Impact of snow

From 18 December, cash withdrawals were affected by snow and the value of withdrawals dropped markedly compared with 2008. During the final shopping weekend of 19/20 December, the value of LINK cash withdrawals fell 7% from the £708 million seen in 2008 to £660 million.

Post-thaw recovery

As the snow melted in most places in the final days before Christmas, cash withdrawals bounced back and Christmas Eve was the busiest day of the year with over half a billion (£565 million) withdrawn in just one day, up 6% on 2008. New Year's Eve was also very busy with £448 million withdrawn, up 20% on 2008.

LINK Managing Director, Edwin Schooling Latter said, "Whilst the snow had a significant effect on cash machine withdrawals, it did not appear to deter most consumers from their Christmas spending. The overall upward trend might also show that some cardholders preferred to Christmas shop with cash to help with their budgeting."

* LINK withdrawals are those which involve a card from one bank being used at a cash machine that is not operated by the same bank. They include both free of charge withdrawals and the small proportion of withdrawals for which a charge is applied by the ATM operator.

-ENDS-

Media Enquiries:

For more information please contact Jemma Smith at the LINK Press Office.

Email: press@ukpayments.org.uk

Tel: +44 (0) 20 7711 6340/020 7711 6368

Mobile: +44 (0) 7811 113 075

About LINK

LINK is the UK's cash machine network. Virtually every cash machine in the UK is connected to LINK, and LINK provides the only route through which debit card and ATM card issuers can offer their customers reliable nationwide access to cash. All the UK's significant debit and ATM card issuers are LINK members.

Cash machine operators who want to deploy ATMs in the UK must join LINK in order to be able to offer cash to the 130 million LINK-enabled cards in circulation. LINK cash withdrawals can exceed £10 billion per month in value and at its busiest, LINK processes over 1 million transactions an hour.

The number of cash machines in the UK has grown from 36,000 in 2001 to 64,000 today. The number of free-to-use ATMs is at an all-time high of over 38,500. Almost 97% of all ATM cash withdrawals by UK cardholders in the UK are made free of charge.

www.link.co.uk

Daily LINK cash withdrawal values - December 2008 vs. 2009