"Indeed, as banks pare down their branch numbers, ATMs represent the opportunity to maintain customer contact and loyalty through a wide spectrum of services that previously would have required a branch visit. And, completing the circle, the ability to transfer valued services from the branch to the less expensive ATM channel — without diminishing customer convenience or satisfaction — can provide an ongoing raison d'être for an ATM estate even in the face of falling cash demand," the report said.

The constant catching up may be making in harder for credit unions and other financial institutions to be more thoughtful about their ATM strategies, according to KAL CEO Aravinda Korala.

"It is just very expensive for the banks to do it," Korala said. "But, of course, it involves much more than just cost. It's also a very complicated project that requires the management of a host of vendors and moving parts."

Nonetheless, financial institutions appeared eager to add to their ATM offerings.

A quarter of the respondents, for example, said they wanted to offer new features and functions; another 25% said they wanted improved ATM availability, 22% said they wanted lower operational costs and 19% said they wanted a better customer experience. Survey respondents also said they wanted their upgrades to help with fraud prevention (24%), software distribution and version control (18%), cash forecasting (14%) and management information reporting (14%).

However, cardless transactions were the top future priority for over half the respondents (53%), beating out biometrics, according to the data.

"It stands to reason. Now that smartphones routinely employ fingerprint or facial ID technology, banks seem entirely willing to let mobile device manufacturers take on the task of user verification for banking transactions," the report said.

Contactless transactions and cash recycling were also functionalities the respondents said they most wanted their ATMs to support in the next three years.

"Cardless and contactless ATM transactions might be all about convenience for the customer, but cash recycling is all about cost-efficiency for the financial institution. And as such, cash recycling becomes ever more important for banks as cash transactions wane in many markets. This fact helped lift cash recycling into the top three as a focus for bank ATM networks," the report said.

Other findings in the survey included:

• 47% of respondents said ATMs were a crucial piece of their wider digital strategies.
• 73% of bank respondents and 63% of nonbank respondents said they had either addressed or were addressing the ATM user interface as an area of focus.