Ron Delnevo's Blog

In an era when many banks feel they must cut their costs by closing branches and ATMs, it is time to finally knock down the barriers to entry which are significantly restricting competition in the UK ATM market. In the United States, where barriers to entry are effectively non-existent, there are literally hundreds of ATM operators, some of which have less than 50 ATMs in their estates. ....

In this interview, payment expert Ron Delnevo stresses the importance of having legislation in the UK to compel businesses which accept in-person payments to accept cash. At a minimum, in 2019 the Payment Systems Regulator, Bank of England and/or HM Treasury need to announce they are going to recommend such a law to the government. When this is done, all businesses will start accepting cash again ....

I started scribing this article on July the 4th, so it is perhaps natural that my British mind turned to tea. However, my own brain had no room for thoughts about Boston. No. My Gray Matter was focused on a Street Cafe near to the UK Payment Systems Regulators (PSR) palatial offices in Stratford, London. There I was, readying myself for a meeting with the CEO of the PSR – and badly in....

I am a decisive person. I favour action over endless debate and discussion. Winston Churchill said “Meeting jaw to jaw is better than war.” BUT, certainly in the UK, we “jaw” too much and get too little done. Look at the expansion of Heathrow.... EXACTLY. When I write my book, exposing the failures of others and glorifying myself ( that’s what biograph....

The current definition of "Legal Tender",as set out by the Bank of England, is not fit for purpose. Here's what the Bank of England has to say on their website: "Legal Tender has a narrow technical meaning which has no use in everyday life. It means that if you offer to fully pay off a debt to someone in Legal Tender, they can’t sue you for failing to repay." "No use in everyday li....

People may think I am joking when I say I have written to Mark Carney, Governor of the Bank of England, offering my services (free-to-use, obviously). I am not. Actually, I am a great letter writer. Years ago, when a misguided UK politician tried to destroy Independent ATM Deployers, I wrote to the Prime Minister, Chancellor of the Exchequer and the General Secretary of his Party. He knew then h....

I was very disappointed to see in the recent UK Access to Cash Review the headlined assertion  that “cash is expensive”. Even if the figure of £5 Billion quoted in the Review as being the annual cost of cash in the UK is accepted - and many believe it should not be - how can it be judged to be “expensive”? It has to be remembered that Sterling - the £ - is the on....

The Access to Cash Enquiry - funded by the LINK ATM Network but intended to be independent - started with such high hopes, but ended up flawed.
Members of the Enquiry Panel were given the opportunity to safeguard cash as a UK Payment Choice FOREVER, but let it slip away.
Where did it go wrong?
Firstly, with the composition of the Panel. No genuine and knowledgeable supporter of c....

The public EVERYWHERE have a right to expect Payment Choice, the right for every individual to use the payment method that they choose. To allow Payment Choice to be limited by commercial enterprises or governments would erode personal freedoms, as well as being detrimental to the economic interests of society as a whole. Around Europe and elsewhere, we can already see limitations on Payme....

             This morning, the UK Access To Cash Review released Part 1 of their report. The document issued has the title “Is Britain Ready To Go Cashless?” Since the document reveals that 97% of UK residents continue to carry cash and 67% of them still like to pay with cash for small purchases, the answer to the question posed is clearly a resou....

You may be aware that there are on going  discussions in Brussels about Dynamic Currency Conversion (DCC). If you don’t know what that is, I suggest you do not read more, for fear of being dreadfully bored! Anyway, moving on, in early 2018, the Economic and Financial Committee of the European Union decided that it wanted to see more transparency in relation to DCC offers, on A....

I have been warning UK retailers for years that they badly need cash as an alternative to cards. One reason, of course, is that card schemes go down.  In recent months, we have had several serious failures, including at Visa Europe. Without cash, both retail sales and customer service standards would have collapsed. If you think that the IT underpinning card schemes will ever be 100....

Which? has issued a report that claims the Big 5 Banks in the UK are closing their branches at the rate of 60 a month. If this is true, it will not be the run-rate of closures for long. Barclays,HSBC, Lloyds Banking Group, RBS Group and Santander have only around 5000 branches left between them. A 60 per month closure rate implies they will all be gone in around 8 years. Of course, all ba....

If you want to know how banking has changed, read on. In the early 1990's, a business associate and I, working together on a new venture, arranged to meet the manager at the branch of the Bank of Ireland near Victoria Station in London. The manager met us cordially and listened intently to our business proposition. Within half an hour, we left with our £25,000 unsecured loan agreed.....

Last week, the UK government launched a consultation entitled "cash and digital payments in the new economy". You can read the whole, very sad, document here  [link] The tone of this document is decidedly anti-cash. Essentially, the clear implication is that only the poor and criminals "need" to use ca....

I will never forget the occasion. My appearance before the Treasury Select Committee (TSC) in February 2005. The TSC was "investigating" cash machine charges. The Chair, John McFall, had taken a particular interest in this subject, perhaps enjoying the media profile it gave him. Being Labour Member of Parliament for West Dunbartonshire didn't normally make the incumbent a star of stage and screen....

The LINK UK ATM Network announced a few months ago that it planned to reduce ATM interchange by 20% over 4 years. This move stunned many observers because LINK interchange is calculated each year using a transparent cost-recovery formula, which was approved by UK Regulatory Authorities well over a decade ago. The essence of the argument put forward by the LINK Board to justify the massive arbitr....

LINK ATM Network are proposing an arbitrary cut of 20% in ATM interchange fees, phased over a four year period. This is quite simply a recipe for the beginning of the end of convenient access to cash in the UK.  Let me very clear; NO level of arbitrary cut is acceptable, for the irrefutable reason that the first such cut will open the flood gates to further cuts, ultimately leading to all UK ....

Sir Mark Boleat, Chairman of LINK Scheme Holdings Limited ( AKA LINK ATM Network) has informed us, through the media, that it is NOT the Industry Directors at  LINK who are pressing for LINK interchange to be arbitrarily cut by 20%. That, of course, begs the question; what ARE the Industry Directors, from a foreign bank and government-owned RBS, doing?  We await an answer to that questi....

If you live in the UK and don't already know that the LINK UK ATM Network is trying to arbitrarily slash interchange by 20%, you should not read on, because this issue, though vital to the future of the UK Public and economy, is clearly of no interest to you. If you are still with me, you must realise the seriousness of the situation. Despite the fact that the Bank of England recently announced ....