ABA CEO Interview on ABC Melbourne with Ali Moore

E&OE
Radio Interview
ABC Melbourne with Ali Moore
Thursday, 30 October 2025.

Topics: Crypto ATMs; scams; cash access.

Ali Moore (Host): So now there are calls to ban the ATMs to try and end the scams. Simon Birmingham is the CEO of the Australian Banking Association. Simon, hello,

Simon Birmingham (Guest):  Hello Ali, great to be with you again.

Ali Moore: So how do people get scammed by these ATMs? How does it work?

Simon Birmingham: Well, unfortunately, Australians get scammed by people who have found that getting people to pay through banks or other methods can often get intercepted. Banks have spent a lot of money in terms of building systems to identify that accounts that people might be transferring to, or words or phrases that form part of that transfer could be a scam, and therefore payments get held up. So instead, scammers will now try to urge people to make payments through things such as transferring gift cards or things like putting money, cash into a crypto ATM and buying Bitcoin that somebody else can manage to access around the world. And the problem is, once you’ve fed your cash into that type of ATM, there’s no way to get it back. And so, if you have been scammed, your dough is gone.

Ali Moore: So essentially, you’re putting in real money. I’m going to call it real money, hard money, physical money. And in return, in theory, you get bitcoin.

Simon Birmingham: In theory. But of course, the way in which people are undertaking that transaction, the Bitcoin that you are in theory purchasing, is actually going to somebody else’s part of the scam. So really, there are three key problems with these ATMs. One is the scam and the fact that they are being used by scammers as a way to get money out of vulnerable Australians, people who have been tricked or scammed into giving away their money, and they’re using these ATMs as an untraceable way to get that money. The second is that because it’s untraceable, it’s also being used for money laundering, so criminal gangs and others will essentially wash and cleanse their money through Bitcoin and through these transactions. And the last is, even if you are somebody who wants to dabble in buying Bitcoin, the fees and charges and other impositions attached with these ATMs are very high, and there are far better ways for those who might want to dabble or gamble or invest in in Bitcoin and crypto currency to do so. And if you’re somebody thinking about that, you should be sophisticated enough to pursue those other proper platforms, rather than an ATM parked in the corner of a 7/11.

Ali Moore: And just in terms of, excuse my ignorance here, but in terms of how you how they use it to money launder essentially. They put in the hard cash that is an ill gotten gain, they buy bitcoin and then down the track, they sell the Bitcoin and get clean money back. Is that how it works?

Simon Birmingham: That is, that is absolutely in a simple nutshell, that it’s much more complicated, probably more complicated that I could explain, let alone make sense of on air.

Ali Moore: So you want them banned?

Simon Birmingham: Look, we don’t see that there’s a legitimate purpose for these ATMs, as I said before, if you are somebody who genuinely wants to dabble, invest, gamble otherwise in cryptocurrency and Bitcoin, there are legitimate platforms you can pursue. These appear to be being excessively used for money laundering, for scammers and for the handful of people who might be using them legitimately. It’s a bad way to go about doing that business, and we welcome the fact that the Albanese government has indicated it’s going to give AUSTRAC, Australia’s financial crimes regulator, the power to be able to regulate or ban these, these Bitcoin or crypto ATMs. We think that it’s right to be able to do so. Indeed, the UK, Singapore, New Zealand, they’ve all already banned them.

Ali Moore:  How many are there? I mean, are they sort of a rarity?

Simon Birmingham: They’re surprisingly common. There’s around 2000 crypto ATMs that have popped up around Australia, and people don’t really notice them unless they’re directed to them or going to use them for legitimate purposes, because they’re just innocuously sitting there in the corner of convenience stores or the like and look like another ATM. But tragically, there are some really awful stories about people who have been scammed, and whether it is romance scams, finance scams, other ways – big warning to everybody, really is if somebody is asking you to pay cash or transfer through unusual means, like Bitcoin or crypto, or like, sending links to gift cards online or the like that should trigger alarm bells that should tell you that there might be something illegitimate about this, and that you should step back and really question if this is a transaction you should be undertaking.

Ali Moore: Simon Birmingham, just a final question as CEO of the Banking Association. We talk quite a bit here on Drive about the decline of cash, and we know that the cash and transit workers have been taking industrial action. I think there’s more planned next week. Is that going to be a problem here in Melbourne Ali?

Simon Birmingham: Obviously, the nature of the industrial action is a matter for Armaguard and the Transport Workers Union. But the banks, together with the Reserve Bank, along with big supermarkets and others, have made sure we’ve put in place, as has Armaguard, business continuity plans to ensure that cash should continue to be easily available. Victorians shouldn’t have any concerns about being able to undertake their banking in the normal way.

Ali Moore: So no need to hoard under the bed?

Simon Birmingham: That’s the point I would stress. In the normal way, just go about business as usual, and the cash will still be there for those who want to use cash when they need it.

Ali Moore: Simon Birmingham, thank you.

Simon Birmingham: Thanks, Ali, my pleasure.

Scams