Banking on it: Clive Nation

The world is facing an epidemic of ATM-related theft, with findings from the FICO fraud-tracking service last year recording a whopping 546%increase in ATM card skimming attacks throughout 2014, to the chagrin of many banks and card owners across Europe and the US. Because of the work of ATM security and maintenance company Cennox, skimming has become largely preventable thanks to new technologies banks can implement in their cash machines to ensure card details are unreadable.

"Card skimming is prevalent around the world right now, and the technology that we acquired and developed at Cennox now prevents cards being copied. Today most of the major UK banks are using our security product to tackle skimming," says Cennox CEO Clive Nation. Adapting to new challenges, thieves have developed a scam where they tamper with card entry slots, trapping the card in the machine so that it appears to have been swallowed. Once users concede defeat, thieves appear and pry it out. "They’ve kept us busy, but we’re getting on top of all the tricks. I’m pleased to say that our standard product covers that now too, and we’re making inroads into the US and Europe."

"Card skimming is prevalent around the world right now, and the technology that we acquired and developed at Cennox now prevents cards being copied." – Clive Nation

Resisting ‘ram raids’

Problem solved? Not quite. Left disarmed from carefully engineered tactics, ATM thieves instead are now turning to more traditional shows of brute strength burgling. Now more likely to be unsuccessful in their attempt to access card details or cash, the next best option is to steal the entire machine.

The proliferation of ATMs forcibly removed by thieves, or ‘ram raids’, has seen increasing numbers of banks and shopfronts severely damaged each year, requiring Cennox to readjust its focus. "We are charged with protecting the machines against ram raids. Sometimes people crash a car into the shopfront; maybe people will even use a JCB to dig the machine out. What is becoming far more common — in fact, there is a 50% increase this year alone — is what we call ‘gas attacks’," says Clive. "Thieves jam a hole in the machine and insert gas pipes to fill the machine with gas and then ignite it. The idea is just to remove the ATM, but very often they end up taking out the whole branch or convenience store."

The company has now begun applying a new technology from partners 3S1 Security Systems to detect and neutralise flammable gases. Though the innovative exploits of criminals continue to evolve, for Cennox no challenge is too great. Clive has come a long way from being a teenage apprentice with entrepreneurial ambitions to heading one of the UK’s top 100 fastest-growing companies, featured as number 59 in The Sunday Times Virgin Fast Track 100 in 2015, and impressively again in 2016. "That’s a fantastic endorsement of the hard work, vision and determination that exists within the talented teams at Cennox," says Clive.

Early entrepreneur

Having left school at age 16, Clive went from undertaking a 5-year engineering apprenticeship with a building services company to becoming a director of the Travelex Corporation. Fresh from a holiday to Spain in his late twenties, Clive’s first big idea arrived on the plane back to England when he wasn’t able to use his Spanish pesetas (pre-Euro) to buy a drink onboard. Recognising the plight of many travellers stuck with leftover foreign money, Clive put his engineering skills to the test and built four foreign exchange machines. These early contraptions would allow those travelling by ferry between England and France to exchange pounds sterling or French francs for credit vouchers, and eventually foreign currency.

Clive soon got the attention of large-scale organisations, which saw him form a joint venture with Travelex, known as the Travelex Foreign Coin Services. After years of success as a processor of international currency exchange and facilitating the donation of leftover foreign money to various charities who had partnered with airlines, Clive also took on the role of servicing and maintaining the ATM machines used within airports and in remote locations. With that estate growing to hold about 1,500 cash machines, Clive sold the business to a specialist ATM deployer and then sold his interest in Travelex. "After taking some time out, I decided to start again, so I bought 6 vans, had 6 employees, and I started Cennox." Having identified a gap in the market during his previous role, Clive started Cennox as an ATM cleaning and repair service in Britain in 2006. Cennox has grown substantially through acquisitions to become a global provider of specialist parts, installation and fit-outs, and of course security services.

Branches of the future

In the future, the company will also continue implementing new technologies to keep pace with the evolution of the financial services industry, or what Clive calls ‘branches of the future’. "You will find our vans out every night, removing ATMs
from bank branches that are closing, and installing new ATMs and multifunctional terminals in new or renovated ones. We also create bespoke signage for large organisations like Harrods, Channel 4, London Underground, and the UK Ministry of Defence, to name a few. The business continues to grow organically and through strategic acquisitions."