20 December 2006
According to research from Barclays, the rush-hour for hitting the hole-in-the-wall is between 12:00-13:00 on a Saturday, with December 23rd expected to see over £1 million being withdrawn from the 50,000 cash machines across the UK.
Between 10:00-15:00, Barclays predicts that £490 million will be withdrawn on the Saturday before Christmas, making it the busiest Saturday in the entire calendar year for cash machines.
In addition, in the run-up to Christmas over £15.5 billion will be withdrawn from cash machines and £31.6 billion spent on debit and credit cards, making a grand spending total of £47 billion this Christmas, an increase of about 4% on last year.
Barnaby Davis, electronic banking director for Barclays, said: "The run-up to Christmas is a busy time for everyone not least for our own staff.
"Action plans are in place to ensure cash machines remain stocked despite the level of activity in a really short space of time, to make sure even those very last minute purchases can be made."
Barclays' research arrives in the same week that Sainsbury's Bank warned consumers to make sure they only used fee-free cash machines this week to avoid paying out £16.43 million unnecessarily.
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