Bancomat is the commercial name of the electronic system that allows bank customers to make withdrawals and purchases, and perform other accounting operations from ATMs. However, in everyday speech, you will commonly hear it used to denote both:
- the magnetic bank card that gives access to the service (also known as carta bancomat or tessera bancomat) and
- the ATM providing the service (also known as sportello bancomat)
It is the compilation of the words banco (in the sense of banca ‘bank’) and mat, an abbreviation of automatico (automatic).
Bancomat is a masculine noun and is invariable. It is used with the following articles:
il bancomat
un bancomat
i bancomat
dei bancomat
Some common verbs you will see used with bancomat include:
- prelevare al bancomat = to withdraw cash from the ATM
- pagare col bancomat = to pay with a bank card
- recarsi al bancomat = to go to the ATM
- smarrire / perdere il bancomat = to lose one’s bank card
- fare un bancomat (informal) = to take money out
Come vuole pagare? Bancomat o contanti?
How would you like to pay? Card or cash?
When talking about a bank card, you can also use the word carta (card), or more specifically, carta di debito (debit card) or carta di credito (credit card). An ATM can also go by the name of cassa automatica or sportello automatico (automatic teller).
Heather Broster is a graduate with honours in linguistics from the University of Western Ontario. She is an aspiring polyglot, proficient in English and Italian, as well as Japanese, Welsh, and French to varying degrees of fluency. Originally from Toronto, Heather has resided in various countries, notably Italy for a period of six years. Her primary focus lies in the fields of language acquisition, education, and bilingual instruction.
