Background: Banking transactions are becoming increasingly automated, hand in hand with the progress of technology. Since in recent years, pensions are paid to pensioners through bank accounts, they have to be familiar with the services provided by banks through ACMs. However, elderly people are not usually familiar with new technologies and this creates difficulties in the use of ACMs. Aims of the study: To get information about the knowledge of the members of Open Care for the Elderly Centres with respect to ACMs, as well as to find out to what extent they use ACM banking services. Methodology: The participants were 204 members of nine Open Care for the Elderly Centres situated in the greater Athens area. An anonymous specially designed 15?¢???item?¢???questionnaire, including two scales, was used for eliciting information from the participants. Cronbach’s alpha ranged from 0.76 for the first scale to 0.79 for the second scale. All statistical analyses were carried out using SPSS for Windows (Release 11). Results: 79 of the participants (38.7%) stated that they had no idea about ACMs and only 12 (5.9%) stated that they were aware of all the banking services available through ACMs. Regarding the actual use of ACMs, the majority of the participants (n=118, 57.8%) never used ACMs, not even for money withdrawal, while the number of users for other services is even lower. Regarding the reasons that prevented them from using ACMs, only 100 (49%) answered the question and 82 subjects (40.2% of the total sample) stated that they did not know how to use them. Only 20 (19%) of the participants stated that they never faced any difficulty in using ACMs. 145 (73.2%) of all participants stated that a practical leaflet describing step by step how to use ACMs would be helpful. The regression analysis applied revealed that age is negatively correlated with knowledge and use of ACMs, while education is positively correlated with knowledge and use of ACMs. Conclusions: In conclusion, more frequent use of ACMs can be achieved by familiarizing customers with ACMs, by way of systematic information initiatives, special training programs, adapting ACMs to the specific needs of the elderly and by providing for easy and comfortable access to them.
