The National ATM Council, which will host its NAC2021 event at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas from Oct. 12-14, is always keeping busy. Lately, executive director Bruce Renard joined the recently-formed Special Committee on Payments Inclusion and has been fighting legislation in Texas.
If it helps independent ATM operators – the National ATM Council is involved with it. That includes the Special Committee on Payments Inclusion, a public-private partnership sponsored by the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta. Their goal is to find solutions for cash-reliant people, getting them better connected to the economy.
This collaboration of payments and financial inclusion experts will “conduct research on emerging issues in payments inclusion, collect and analyze data to better understand trends in the evolving payments ecosystem and make recommendations to the industry and policymakers based on research findings.”
In other NAC news, the council is fighting “well-intended but seriously misguided” legislation in the Texas state legislature (HB-2629, which passed the House and is poised for consideration by the Senate).
Aimed to thwart human trafficking by cracking down on cash, NAC said, “This ill-conceived measure would impose a costly and burdensome registration process on all ATM entrepreneurs in the state, whether or not they provide service in a location suspected in human trafficking activities, thereby increasing the overall costs of this essential service for consumers.”
They also add that “there is no useful financial information available to be obtained from the ATM terminal or deployer by law enforcement as intended by the bill.”