The municipality of reference is Líjar, and the information comes after the Plataforma Denaria, an association that brings together interests around the defence of cash, held a conference in which the president of the Diputación, Javier Aureliano García, took part.
In 2023, the municipality with the highest number of ATM movements was Líjar, which with 389 inhabitants, had 6,119 movements totalling 1,235,000 euros.
The municipality assures that part of these movements are due to the fact that the ATM is located in a passing place, and that not only the residents of Líjar, but also the whole area, carry out banking operations.
The truth is that the neighbouring village of Albanchez, with a population of 682 inhabitants, is also in the ranking of the outstanding ones, since according to the data provided, in the ATM of Albanchez, there have been 4,992 movements for a total amount of 820,000 euros last year.
The top spot goes to the municipality of Benitaglia, in the region of Los Filabres, which with 53 inhabitants in 2022, carried out 369 movements at the ATM for a total of 678,000 euros.
The provincial body is a national benchmark for the implementation of a Plan against Financial Exclusion through which it has provided ATMs to the 33 municipalities that lacked them in our geography, several of them in the region of Almanzora.
García explained that the model used in Diputación de Almería is the contracting of this service by public tender in two lots that bring together the different counties in order to limit and put an end to financial exclusion in the province. This seven-year contract is currently operated by Unicaja and Euromatic Cash, who won the two lots of 19 and 14 ATMs respectively.
«The data reveals the need for these ATMs in the municipalities and how in the rural world cash is still essential for commercial transactions. Last year, around 9.2 million euros were transacted through 64,000 movements.