Sparkasse, Commerzbank & Co.: Customers often run out of cash at night

Created: 2022-12-14 4:39 p.m

By: Lisa Mayerhofer

Shards lie in front of a Sparkasse branch where an ATM was blown up.

(Archive image) © Guido Schulmann/dpa/Archive image

In Germany, more and more ATMs are being blown up by criminals.

Banks and savings banks are therefore increasingly locking their anterooms at night – including for customers.

According to a media report, around 450 ATMs were blown up nationwide this year.

This means that the crime has reached a high, reported the

, citing participants in the conference of interior ministers (IMK) in December.

Accordingly, significantly fewer machines were blown up in previous years: 414 in 2020 and 381 in 2021.

Bombings of ATMs are increasing: “Pedestrians have already been injured”

The crimes are now increasingly being committed with explosives, the newspaper reported, citing the conference of interior ministers.

This is a new and worrying development.

In the past, criminals would have used gas mixtures for attacks.

For the money stolen, dead people would be accepted.

Oliver Huth, state chairman of the Association of German Criminal Investigators (BDK) in North Rhine-Westphalia, told

that people in the vicinity of the crime scene were in acute danger: "Pedestrians were already injured, metal parts smashed into children's rooms and houses were no longer habitable. "

In the meantime, more and more criminals from the Netherlands are committing their crimes in the Federal Republic, said Lower Saxony's Interior Minister Boris Pistorius (SPD) according to the newspaper.

The reason is that banks in Germany, unlike in the neighboring country, forgo the use of adhesive techniques, with which banknotes are pasted up and unusable when they are blown up.

According to the information, Pistorius also brought a legal obligation into play so that banks in this country better protect their machines.

Kreissparkasse München-Starnberg-Ebersberg reacts to machine blasts

However, the banks themselves are reacting less by using new technologies and more by closing branches and dismantling ATMs.

Just last week, the Kreissparkasse München-Starnberg-Ebersberg announced drastic measures after a series of bomb attacks on ATMs: The self-service branches with ATMs in Gilching, Inning and Percha (Starnberg district) will be shut down with immediate effect.

The Sparkasse München-Starnberg-Ebersberg asks its customers to get cash at other locations of the district savings bank.

For other locations in the district of Munich and the districts of Starnberg and Ebersberg, a night security service is currently being used.

However, the Stadtsparkasse in Munich are not affected by the preventive measures. 

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Banks in Hesse have been closing their anterooms at night for a long time

At the Sparkasse Fulda and the Sparkasse Oberhessen, cash is no longer available around the clock because of the blasts.

And the Frankfurter Sparkasse closed the foyers of 49 of the 56 branches between midnight and 5 a.m.

The other places would remain open, however, because they are in such busy places that they are out of the question for blasting, a spokesman told

in the spring.

Because the savings banks in Hesse have long been closed at night - as a reaction to the bomb attacks on ATMs in the state.

So far, there have been no major protests from customers at the savings banks.

"Many don't even notice it," the spokesman told the radio.

The savings banks are not the only ones who are increasingly closing their branches at night: in addition to many Volksbanks, Commerzbank and Deutsche Bank also close their anterooms at night if they see a risk of ATMs being blown up.

"At some locations, the self-service zones are closed at night, the times depend on the location," a spokeswoman for Commerzbank told

.

Deutsche Bank takes a similar approach.

With success: The number of ATM demolitions in Hesse is declining, although they have otherwise increased in the republic.

In the current year, there have been 36 cases of automated blasting, the Ministry of the Interior said at the request of the German Press Agency in Wiesbaden.

In the same period last year, 47 cases were registered.

With material from the dpa