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ATMs Go Mobile – Sonect and ePay Turn 10,000 Supermarkets into ATMs

Press Release

Milan, February 6th 2023 – More than ten thousand Italian supermarkets could offer the cash withdrawal service directly at the till by mid2023, thanks to the partnership between epay and Sonect. These will be added to the approximately 43000 ATMs nationwide. An important increase that will facilitate access to ca for Italian citizens, particularly in the more isolated areas of the country.

‹It is important that alongside the simplicity and freedom of digital payments, emphasises Amedeo Cristofaro, Country Manager Italy of Sonect ‹there are tools that allow cash to be chosen in a sustainable way, both for banks and for citizens. The partnership with epay represents a fundamental step in this direction›.

Access to cash is, in fact, still crucial even though digital payments are growing steadily. Banks, however, are increasingly struggling to meet the costs of operating an ATM network. Sonect, with its service Just In Cash therefore solves this problem, bridging the gap between physical and digital, offering citizens easy access to cash and distributed throughout the territory thanks to epay’s network, and enabling retailers to add a useful service to their offering.

Just in Cash is a brand of the fintech startup Sonect, which in Switzerland has already transformed more than 2,300 shops into withdrawal points. Thanks to the functionality integrated into their bank’s app, users can book the amount they need via smartphone and choose where to withdraw it from the map of participating outlets. This is not a cashback scheme, and it is not necessary to make a purchase at the point of sale to access the service. Simply go to the cashier and present the barcode to receive the sum indicated.

«Given the unstoppable phenomenon of bank desertification and the resulting daily problem of access to cash, our close collaboration with Sonect and its service Just in Cash allows us to offer Italian supermarkets the solution that will solve the problems for many of their customers,» says Sebastiano Licciardello, General Manager of epay Italy.

epay has now been the main technology partner of the most important food and electronics brands for 15 years, where it distributes the prepaid products and content for telephony, pay TV, ecommerce, digital content, games and software of the world’s bestknown brands through its integration with the till systems! Thanks to the integration with Just In Cash, customers of banks that have adopted the solution will be able to withdraw money directly from the supermarket till, conveniently and quickly.

In 2021, cash payments in Italy accounted for about 50%. Cash therefore remains widespread, especially for frequent, lowvalue transactions. In Italy, payments above EUR 100 account for just 1.7 per cent, while the average cash payment is between EUR 12 and EUR 16 depending on the region, with the average monthly household spending around EUR 800 in total. Surprisingly, even millennials, i.e. young people between 18 and 34 years of age, continue to use banknotes and even bank cheques, as revealed by a very recent survey conducted by FinanceBuzz, which reported that 88% of young respondents used cash to make purchases in the last month.

Sonect
Founded in Zurich in 2016, Sonect is the fintech startup engaged in the development of a platform that
enables cash withdrawals at participating retailers quickly and easily via your smartphone. Today, Sonect is
the largest ATM network in Switzerland, where it has been active since May on the TWINT platform, to which
almost all Swiss banks with more than 4,500,000 users belong. International expansion into other markets
beyond Italy,such as EU and Latin America is also underway.
For more information visit justincash.it

epay
epay is a leading global payment service provider for payment processing and prepaid solutions that
processed 3 billion transactions in 2021. The company has established an extensive reseller network with
777,000 pointofsale terminals in 63 countries to connect major brands with consumers worldwide. The
company offers a diverse ecosystem of services, products and solutions supporting payment distribution for
more than 1,000 brand partners through omnichannel solutions (physical and online).
For more information visit epayworldwide.com

Press Office
Steivan Pitsch Sonect steivan@sonect.ch
Veronica Crippa DeRev [email protected]