Cash withdrawals set a record on Dec. 23 in the U.K., with Brits withdrawing £730 million from LINK cash machines.
Consumers took out the money in the run-up to Christmas to the tune of close to £100 million more than Dec. 24, the record day for withdrawals in 2015. For all of 2016, LINK said £12 billion was withdrawn from 70,000 LINK ATMs. That’s up 3.5 percent from Dec. 2015.
LINK is in the spotlight because of Mastercard’s $920 million acquisition of VocaLink, a deal reached in July. Now, the Competition and Markets Authority is looking at the transaction, stating that several stakeholders across the payments industry have raised the alarm over competitive concerns.
Here are the numbers:
£730 million | Value withdrawn from LINK ATMs on December 23, 2016
~£100 million+ | Increase in value over last year’s record on December 24, 2015
Advertisement: Scroll to Continue
£12 billion | Total withdrawn for all of 2016
70,000 | LINK ATMs counted in annual withdrawal total
3.5 percent | Year-over-year increase in cash withdrawn over 2015
$920 million | What MasterCard paid to acquire VocaLink
