Canadian financial institutions have built one of the most extensive and sophisticated customer service networks in the world. The cooperative Desjardins Group, the largest financial cooperative group and the sixth largest financial institution in Canada, has been at the forefront of this development.

In a country where people clearly view the benefits of electronic banking, Desjardins today offers its 5.2 million customers convenient online services and, in its home base of Quebec, one of the densest ATM networks in the world with 3,000 ATMs at their disposal—24 hours a day, seven days a week.

After launching the first ATM at the city of Trois-Rivières-Quebec in 1981, Desjardins has seen interest in self-service banking soar not only in Quebec but across the country. Canadians are the highest per capita users of ATMs in the world. In 2003, they logged 43 ATM transactions per person, compared with 40 in the U.K. and 37 in the U.S., according to the Bank for International Settlements. Canada also has the highest penetration of ATMs of any country in the world with 1,394 per million inhabitants, compared with 1,275 in the U.S. and 895 in Japan.

“Our ATM users want accessibility, simplicity and security, and they receive all that and more from IBM and Wincor Nixdorf,” says Jean-François Mérette, Manager ATM and Point-of-Sale Access at Desjardins. “The ATM channel is critical to maintain our leadership position with respect to the distribution of financial products and services online. This is seen in the fact that our members carried out more than 1.34 billion transactions using ATMs, point-of-sale terminals, Internet and telephone services in 2004, an increase of 16.3 % compared to 2003.”