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Acquisitive cash machine operator Cashbox is shifting to free-to-use machines after an interim pre-tax deficit trimmed by £250,000 to £1.2 million.

The Hampshire-based company increased turnover 13 per cent to £3.4 million in the six months to December, which it ended with cash of £711,000, down from £1.1 million a year earlier. AIM-quoted Cashbox lifted transaction numbers nearly 40 per cent to 2.9 million in the six months to December, despite having 310 fewer machines installed in pubs, bars and other outlets at the end of the period, partly as a result of the demise of drinks retailer Threshers.

Chairman and chief executive Ciaran Morton argues the company has weathered the storm by enhancing the productivity of each remaining machine. Redeploying and upgrading the ATMs and taking more into the company’s own ownership should help, he contends.

He explains: ‘We took control of the Threshers machines in December and January [and] are now redeploying them as free-to-use'. He maintains experience shows the public and therefore the outlets installing ATMs prefer cash machines which do not impose a charge for use and so take more money from them, while the users’ banks pay Cashbox and other free-to-use ATM operators a fee of about 30p per transaction.

With only 10 per cent of Cashbox’s machines free-to-use, but generating 15 per cent of total traffic, the company aims to increase the free-to-use portion significantly. Some analysts see Cashbox reaching breakeven at the level of earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation in the year to June 2011, with profits on the cards for 2011-12.

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