Did you hear the one about the Irish ATM?
I had a fantastic trip to Ireland for the new year. During my trip I used an ATM machine to get some cash out. I was surprised by the default cash options. I’ve been racking my brains and can’t seem to come up with any sensible rationale for these amounts. Do you have any idea what the business objectives might be here? (See below pic)
After I got home I couldn’t quite let it go, so I started a little side rabbit hole, taking screenshots of default values across different interfaces and different countries to see if there was a pattern. A French loan calculator pre-filling €17,500 instead of €15k or €20k. A hotel booking widget defaulting to two adults and one child no matter how solo your account looks. Deposit comparison tables on ολα τα online casino review sites where the slider lands on €30 rather than €25 or €50. A Dublin Airport transit kiosk suggesting a €3.40 top-up. None of these are round numbers, and none of them seem to be averages. They all look like they came out of a meeting where someone picked something and nobody pushed back hard enough to change it.
My best guess is that the Irish ATM number is the output of an A/B test the bank has never published the results of. Someone ran the experiment, the winning option produced the highest average withdrawal or the lowest abandonment rate, and the value got committed to production looking arbitrary because the reasoning stayed inside the meeting. Still curious if anyone reading this has worked on the ATM side and can confirm or kill the theory.
Answers in the comments please!
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So they only have to load it with denominations of 20s and 50s?
Even with only 20s and 50s you could still do something sensible like: 20, 40, 100, 150, 200, 300…
A lot of Banks charge for a withdrawal on accounts.
So they want to keep the withdrawal amounts as low as possible, (so you keep coming back).
Alongside this they want to refill the machine as little as possible. (Hence using only 20’s and 50’s),
They probably also need to take into account daily withdrawal limits.
Finally maybe they survey’d what customers and shops want. (i.e.) Shops/Taxi’s hate breaking 50’s all day.
may be they are intelligent enough to track the denominations most of the other people select using that ATM and giving you that option ??
Maybe these are the euro amounts that correspond to what people were used to withdrawing before. Or maybe there’s a cultural barrier to spending more then e90 at the pub in one night 🙂
I think Richard is right about the conversion between Punts and Euros.
Use balancing: the amounts represent 1 bill (20), 2 bills (40), 3 bills (90), 3 bills (120), 3 bills (150), 4 bills (170), 5 bills (220), as well as minimal alternates (120: 2×50+1×20, or 6×20; 90: only 2×20+1×50).
This helps keep a balance between use of 20’s and 50’s – easier maintenance.
But mostly, someone WAY over-thinking it.