Despite Today’s Digital Shift, 25 Countries Still Rely on ATMs

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By many measures, cash in on its way out. According to market research from Capital One, 47.8% of Americans make no cash purchases in an average week. A majority of point-of-sale transactions are cashless, with many consumers switching from credit cards to entirely digital payment services like Apple Pay and Google Pay. In May, the U.S. Treasury announced it would phase out production of the penny.

While the use of physical dollars is on the decline, some countries are far more dependent on cash than others, and will likely remain so. Worldwide, there are an average of 40.4 automated teller machines per 100,000 residents. In some countries, however the proportion is nearly 10 times that.

As a measure of cash reliance, the list of countries with the highest concentration of ATMs reveals a mix of dense, tourism-dependent nations where digital payment services have yet to take over. In countries like Macau, the Bahamas, and Aruba, a high concentration of ATMs may be indicative of an active tourism sector. And while ATM concentration can be a function of population density overall, sparsely populated countries like Canada and Russia also rank highly. Neither is ATM concentration strongly correlated with the percentage of adults with a bank account. A closer look at the data reveals the countries with the most ATMs per capita.

To identify the countries with the most ATMs per capita, My Investing News reviewed data on automated teller machines from International Monetary Fund. Countries were ranked based on the number of automated teller machines per 100,000 residents for the most recent year of data available. Supplemental data on the number of commercial bank branches are also from the IMF, while data on the percentage of adults with account ownership at a financial institution or with a mobile-money-service provider are from the Global Findex database.

• Concentration of ATMs: 92.7 per 100,000 adults
• Concentration of commercial bank branches: 92.0 per 100,000 adults
• Adults with account ownership at financial institution: 84.0%
• Largest urban areas: Sofia, Plovdiv, Varna, Ruse, Burgas, Pleven, Stara Zagora, Yambol, Vratsa, Pazardzhik

• Concentration of ATMs: 93.1 per 100,000 adults
• Concentration of commercial bank branches: 0.4 per 100,000 adults
• Adults with account ownership at financial institution: 83.6%
• Largest urban areas: Kyiv, Kharkiv, Donetsk, Dnipro, Odesa, Zaporizhzhia, Kryvyi Rih, Lviv, Luhansk, Mykolaiv

• Concentration of ATMs: 93.6 per 100,000 adults
• Concentration of commercial bank branches: 39.0 per 100,000 adults
• Adults with account ownership at financial institution: N/A
• Largest urban areas: Victoria, Bon Espoir, Ma Constance

• Concentration of ATMs: 96.2 per 100,000 adults
• Concentration of commercial bank branches: 31.2 per 100,000 adults
• Adults with account ownership at financial institution: 70.5%
• Largest urban areas: Tbilisi, Kutaisi, Zugdidi, Batumi, Ozurgeti, Chiatura, Gori, Kobuleti, Senaki, Zestaponi

• Concentration of ATMs: 97.9 per 100,000 adults
• Concentration of commercial bank branches: 8.3 per 100,000 adults
• Adults with account ownership at financial institution: 95.6%
• Largest urban areas: Bangkok, Udon Thani, Phra Nakhon Si Ayutthaya, Nakhon Ratchasima, Chiang Mai, Nakhon Sawan, Nakhon Si Thammarat, Khon Kaen, Hat Yai, Nakhon Pathom

• Concentration of ATMs: 104.9 per 100,000 adults
• Concentration of commercial bank branches: 54.3 per 100,000 adults
• Adults with account ownership at financial institution: 44.1%
• Largest urban areas: Tashkent, Qarshi, Samarkand, Turtkul, Jizzax, Namangan, Fergana, Shahrisabz, Andijan, Termez

• Concentration of ATMs: 109.4 per 100,000 adults
• Concentration of commercial bank branches: 10.0 per 100,000 adults
• Adults with account ownership at financial institution: N/A
• Largest urban areas: Oranjestad, San Nicolaas

• Concentration of ATMs: 109.6 per 100,000 adults
• Concentration of commercial bank branches: 33.7 per 100,000 adults
• Adults with account ownership at financial institution: 98.5%
• Largest urban areas: Tokyo, Osaka, Nagoya, Sapporo, Fukuoka, Takasaki, Hiroshima, Kitakyushu, Sendai, Okayama

• Concentration of ATMs: 111.0 per 100,000 adults
• Concentration of commercial bank branches: 16.0 per 100,000 adults
• Adults with account ownership at financial institution: 84.0%
• Largest urban areas: Sío Paulo, Rio De Janeiro, Belo Horizonte, Recife, Salvador, Fortaleza, Curitiba, Porto Alegre, Belém, Sao Goncalo

• Concentration of ATMs: 111.4 per 100,000 adults
• Concentration of commercial bank branches: 16.9 per 100,000 adults
• Adults with account ownership at financial institution: 99.3%
• Largest urban areas: Sydney, Melbourne, Perth, Brisbane, Adelaide, Gold Coast, Newcastle, Werribee, Wollongong, Geelong

• Concentration of ATMs: 116.6 per 100,000 adults
• Concentration of commercial bank branches: 21.7 per 100,000 adults
• Adults with account ownership at financial institution: N/A
• Largest urban areas: Nassau, Freeport, Lucaya, Marsh Harbour

• Concentration of ATMs: 116.7 per 100,000 adults
• Concentration of commercial bank branches: 33.7 per 100,000 adults
• Adults with account ownership at financial institution: N/A
• Largest urban areas: Basseterre

• Concentration of ATMs: 121.4 per 100,000 adults
• Concentration of commercial bank branches: 21.6 per 100,000 adults
• Adults with account ownership at financial institution: 89.7%
• Largest urban areas: Moscow, Saint Petersburg, Nizhny Novgorod, Yekaterinburg, Omsk, Novosibirsk, Chelyabinsk, Rostov-On-Don, Krasnoyarsk, Kazan

• Concentration of ATMs: 127.8 per 100,000 adults
• Concentration of commercial bank branches: N/A
• Adults with account ownership at financial institution: N/A
• Largest urban areas: Yaren

• Concentration of ATMs: 128.1 per 100,000 adults
• Concentration of commercial bank branches: 4.8 per 100,000 adults
• Adults with account ownership at financial institution: 57.5%
• Largest urban areas: Lima, Arequipa, Trujillo, Chiclayo, Chimbote, Cusco, Huancayo, Piura, Pucallpa, Sullana

• Concentration of ATMs: 129.1 per 100,000 adults
• Concentration of commercial bank branches: 24.7 per 100,000 adults
• Adults with account ownership at financial institution: 91.8%
• Largest urban areas: Zagreb, Split, Rijeka, Osijek, Slavonski Brod, Zadar, Pula - Pola, Varaždin, Županja, Dubrovnik

• Concentration of ATMs: 135.6 per 100,000 adults
• Concentration of commercial bank branches: 122.0 per 100,000 adults
• Adults with account ownership at financial institution: N/A
• Largest urban areas: Serravalle

• Concentration of ATMs: 138.3 per 100,000 adults
• Concentration of commercial bank branches: 14.2 per 100,000 adults
• Adults with account ownership at financial institution: 92.9%
• Largest urban areas: Tel Aviv, Haifa, Beer Sheva, Ashdod, Nazareth, Netanya, Modi'In Illit, Ashkelon, Qiryat Ata, Eilat

• Concentration of ATMs: 161.2 per 100,000 adults
• Concentration of commercial bank branches: 29.2 per 100,000 adults
• Adults with account ownership at financial institution: 92.7%
• Largest urban areas: Lisbon, Porto, Barreiro, Funchal, Póvoa De Varzim, Amora, Braga, Setúbal, Esmoriz, Coimbra

• Concentration of ATMs: 172.0 per 100,000 adults
• Concentration of commercial bank branches: 11.0 per 100,000 adults
• Adults with account ownership at financial institution: 100.0%
• Largest urban areas: Vienna, Linz, Graz, Salzburg, Innsbruck, Klagenfurt, Wels, Steyr, Bregenz, Villach

• Concentration of ATMs: 173.2 per 100,000 adults
• Concentration of commercial bank branches: 26.6 per 100,000 adults
• Adults with account ownership at financial institution: 95.0%
• Largest urban areas: New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Detroit, Miami, Dallas, San Jose, Houston, Washington D.C.

• Concentration of ATMs: 188.5 per 100,000 adults
• Concentration of commercial bank branches: 19.0 per 100,000 adults
• Adults with account ownership at financial institution: 99.6%
• Largest urban areas: Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, Winnipeg, Edmonton, Quebec, Calgary, Ottawa, London, Kitchener

• Concentration of ATMs: 257.1 per 100,000 adults
• Concentration of commercial bank branches: 12.7 per 100,000 adults
• Adults with account ownership at financial institution: 98.7%
• Largest urban areas: Seoul, Busan, Daegu, Daejeon, Gwangju, Ulsan, Changwon, Jeonju, Cheongju-Si, Pohang-Si

• Concentration of ATMs: 259.6 per 100,000 adults
• Concentration of commercial bank branches: 44.3 per 100,000 adults
• Adults with account ownership at financial institution: N/A
• Largest urban areas: N/A

• Concentration of ATMs: 314.8 per 100,000 adults
• Concentration of commercial bank branches: 9.0 per 100,000 adults
• Adults with account ownership at financial institution: 74.1%
• Largest urban areas: Montevideo, Las Piedras, Artigas, Paysandú, Ciudad De La Costa, Melo, Tacuarembó, Mercedes, Maldonado, Minas