Withdraw Cash Wednesday (WCW) is a new initiative by ATMIA to remind consumers that they should withdraw cash in advance for the major shopping day of the week which is Friday. It is basically a promotion to withdraw cash from ATMs on Wednesday. This initiative brings out more visibility of the usage of ATMs around the busiest times of the year.

This campaign did not only start to increase the usage of ATMs during the busy season but also to make the consumers aware what are some of the problems they might have to face during the holiday season while withdrawing cash.

The platinum sponsors of the initiative are Cardtronics and Allpoint Network. Although there have been mixed reactions when the initiative was announced, the initiative was strongly supported because of the reasons explained below:

Money Saving

There was once a survey by Bankrate.com that showed that around 24 percent of American adults had no money saved for emergencies like medical bills or when they were laid off. The basic strategy which is recommended to save money is to control spending using cash. And this is just not a personal opinion. The 2017 Health of Case Study by Cardtronics stated that 75 percent of consumers believed in paying in cash to save money. Cash proved to be an effective way to stop them from overspending. I personally feel that as well and it has always been effective for me to stay on budget and save money by using cash.

A healthy customer and retailer relationship to increase sales

Richard Kestenbaum who is a contributor from Forbes said that customer loyalty comes with a lot of things which includes understanding the customers and their needs. Quite obviously, customers want their options be it cashless or cash only. Around 89 percent of the American consumers like to have the option of various methods according to Health of Cash Study. 61 percent of the population does not like it when retailers do not accept cash even if they prefer to pay in cash. So, it only means that just like anything else more than half of the population likes to keep their options open to every payment method.

This is not only a good news for the consumers but also the owners of establishments because they could see a visible increase in their sales after this initiative. In a study sponsored by Cardtronics and conducted by an independent research firm Scansion, the sales in a drug store doubled with an ATM in the store.

According to “Global ATM Market and Forecast to 2022”, there are 66 percent ATMs that are nowhere near a bank branch and many of these offsite ATMs are not even owned by a bank. It is however, becoming easier for customers to find a surcharge-free ATM to access cash.