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Citibank customers soon will be able to make deposits at more than 2,000 multifunctional ATMs, or Vcoms, owned by Cardtronics Inc. and deployed in 7-Eleven Inc. convenience stores, J. Chris Brewster, Cardtronics chief financial officer, told analysts today during a conference call. Since January, Citi has been piloting deposit acceptance at Vcoms in 7-Eleven stores in Alameda County, Calif. (CardLine, 1/16). At the time, Citibank executives said if they determined the was successful, the bank said it would rollout deposit acceptance at Cardtronics' Vcoms at 7-Eleven stores throughout California. A Citibank spokesperson declined to say how many 7-Eleven stores would be involved in the California rollout. Except in locations where the deposit pilot is taking place, Citibank customers are limited to withdrawing cash surcharge-free from ATMs housed in 7-Eleven stores through a contract the New York-based bank has with Cardtronics. Houston-based Cardtronics purchased 5,700 cash-dispensing ATM and Vcoms from 7-Eleven, the Dallas-based convenience-store chain, in June 2007 for $137 million. During a question-and-answer session with analysts, Brewster quantified the size of the project. "We will be adding to our remote-deposit cashier platform the Citibank card base here in the next couple of months. … Citibank customers will be able to make remote deposit at 2,200 Vcoms located in 7-Elevens in the next couple of months," Brewster said. For the three-month period ended Dec. 31, Vcom operating revenues totaled $1.24 million, up 119% from $566,000 for the same three-month period in 2007. Cardtronics, the world's largest ATM independent sales organization based on machines owned and managed, reported total revenues for the period of $118.2 million, up 2% $115.9 million. The company reported a fourth-quarter net loss of $57.9 million, which compared with a net loss of $7 million for the same three-month period in 2007. Cardtronics executives blame the latest loss on a write-down in the value of the company's goodwill associated with its UK operation, Bank Machine Ltd. Cardtronics operated 33,064 transacting ATMs at the end of December, up 3.6% from 31,923 a year earlier.
