ATM Processing Companies: How to Choose the Right One
Not all ATM processors are the same. Here’s what separates the good ones — and how FPE handles it.
ATM processing companies handle the electronic side of every ATM transaction — connecting your machine to the card networks, approving the withdrawal, and settling the money afterward. It runs quietly in the background until it doesn’t, and then your ATM is sitting there dark while customers walk out to find one that works.
If you own an ATM, or you’re about to, the processor you choose decides how reliably that machine runs. Below is what to look at before you choose one.
What does an ATM processing company actually do?
When a customer puts a card in your machine and asks for cash, the ATM doesn’t know whether that person has the money. It has to ask.
That question travels from your machine to the processor, which routes it through the card networks for approval. The answer comes back the same way, and your machine dispenses the cash.
All of that happens in a few seconds. Afterward, the processor handles settlement — moving the money so your account is made whole for the cash the machine dispensed.
The processor is also the reason the machine is talking to anything at all. It maintains the connection. If that connection drops, the ATM stops working, no matter how good the hardware is.
Do you need a processor if you already own your ATM?
Yes. Owning the machine and having it processed are two separate things.
Business owners might buy an ATM, plug it in, and find out it won’t run without a processing company handling transactions. The machine is hardware. The processor is what makes it a working ATM instead of a box in the corner.
You can read more about how ATM processing works on our processing page.
What separates a good ATM processing company from a bad one?
Three things, and they show up the first time something goes wrong.
Uptime and monitoring. A good processor watches your machine and knows it’s down before you do. A bad one finds out when you call. Every hour your ATM is offline is money that walked out the door.
Reporting you can read. You should be able to see what your machine did — transactions, activity — without decoding a spreadsheet. And if something on the report doesn’t make sense, you should be able to call and get it explained.
One company for everything. The right processor also loads your cash and services the machine. When those are split between three vendors, each one tells you it’s someone else’s problem while your ATM sits dark.
How does FPE handle ATM processing?
We’ve been doing this since 1997, and we’re still family-owned. That’s not a slogan — it means when you call, you get people who’ve been doing this for years and who answer for their own work.
We’re based in Burbank, California, and we work with businesses across the country. Whatever your machine needs, it comes from one place.
Hablamos español — call and speak with someone in either language.
If you own an ATM and want to talk about processing it, or you’re not sure what you need, call us and we’ll walk you through it.