In a hearing before the Parliamentary Committee on State Reform and Local Government, Castro Almeida spoke about the project the Government has been working on with the Portuguese Banking Association (APB), the Bank of Portugal, and the company SIBS (manager of the Multibanco network) to install Multibanco ATMs in parishes where there are none, estimated at over 1,000.
The minister explained that in the larger parishes without ATMs, the goal is “to be able to install normal ATM machines.”
In the smaller ones, the goal is “not to install Multibanco machines, but those small platforms that allow you to do what a Multibanco machine allows, except for dispensing cash.”
In other words, in these parishes, the goal is to install machines that allow citizens to make payments but not withdraw money.
There, he said, the plan is for the Parish Councils to hand over money to people who want to withdraw cash.
“There, we have to set up a system with the parishes so that people can make transactions with, let’s say, the monetary participation of the parishes. The parish councils will have to have liquid money to be able to hand over to people,” said Castro Almeida.
Lack of ATMs
The lack of ATMs has been a concern regularly raised by the National Association of Parishes – Anafre, which was even debated at the congress at the end of January. There, a motion was approved that called attention to this issue.
Regarding the Parish Councils’ handing over of money, Anafre had previously raised doubts about the Parish Councils’ ability to advance funds.
When he took office as governor of the Bank of Portugal in October 2025, Álvaro Santos Pereira said the banking system must maintain sufficient ATMs nationwide to ensure the population can easily access physical cash.
In September 2025, Denária, an association that advocates for the use of cash as a means of payment, criticised the “cash deserts” in Portugal for the lack of ATMs, noting that this mainly affects the most isolated and vulnerable groups.
The association cited data from the Bank of Portugal from 2022, according to which 1,276 parishes (41%) had no access point to physical cash. There are parishes where residents have to travel dozens of kilometres to access an ATM.
For the association, it is imperative to strengthen network coverage and ensure that all Portuguese people have the right to use cash.
At the end of 2025, there were 13,700 ATMs in Portugal, according to data from the Bank of Portugal.
