Not any more it isn't. WAY back in the past, there was a PIN "Offset" stored on the card, which relies on an ATM having the correct "PIN Verification Key" from the financial institution to validate. However, that's no longer the case. If you look at the track 2 data on any card today, the numbers in the offset field are either random or '0000'.

To clarify, transactions are mostly authorized in realtime by the bank that issued the card (*some* credit card transactions can be done "offline" but not normally at an ATM unless there's a network problem). The nightly batches are settlement processes where the bank actually pays the ATM owner for the cash they gave to the bank's customer. Authorization happens in realtime, money shuffling between financial institutions happens at night.

Considering money in our world is imaginary and borrowed into existence, wouldn't any amount of expenditure be justified to bring back even the slightest tangible resource? Even if it is just a moderate advancement in technology.

*shakes fist*

"billions and billions" is finite. If the universe is infinite, there are either no habitable planets or an infinite number of them.

I suppose the Earth being potentially borderline habitable may have something to do with the apparent lack of evidence of extraterrestrials. A planet that is too friendly to life may not have had the 6+ mass extinctions and rapidly changing environment that helps drive evolution. One that's borderline habitable like ours (assuming the assertion in your link is true) keeping life for as long as it has might be a tremendous fluke.