NAC Says ATM Operators Aren’t Seeing Skimming Problems

The National ATM Council announced Wednesday (May 10) the results of its 2017 U.S. Retail ATM Skimming Survey and found nine out of 10 survey respondents said they have never encountered a skimming device on the ATMs’ routes.

In a press release highlighting the results, the National ATM Council said the survey was aimed at ascertaining the current level and nature of card skimming activity at retail ATMs throughout the U.S. Respondents of the survey included 151 ATM companies. A large majority of the ATM providers — 70 percent — operated in the ATM market for more than 10 years.

What’s more, the trade group said 89 percent of respondents have ATM business protocols that involve regular checks of their ATM terminals and provide consumers with a phone number to call in case of any irregularities at the machines.

Four respondents this year reported seeing six or more instances of skimming activity on their routes, compared with two respondents in 2016 — a definite year-over-year increase, but still entailing a minuscule number of incidents out of the many tens of thousands of ATMs and millions of transactions covered by the survey.

“NAC has long anticipated some level of increase in skimming at independent ATMs during the transition to EMV chip card technology now underway for all ATMs in the U.S.,” said Bruce Renard, executive director for NAC, in the press release. “Data we have seen from other countries indicates increased skimming activity during this migration period. We are pleased that the vast majority of retail ATMs in the U.S. has remained free from skimming activity thus far.”

The NAC said that when the survey respondents were provided the ability to offer up additional comments regarding skimming at their ATMS, survey respondents rejected the idea retail ATMs constituted a significant target for card skimming.

“Each and every ATM on my route is visually inspected, the customer fascia area cleaned and test transaction performed. The armored personnel do the same on their routes,” said one respondent according to the NAC. Another said, “While other types of payment terminals have had skimming devices found in our area, none of the more than 1,200 ATMs that we have ownership or processing interest in over the last 18 years has ever had a skimming device found on them.”