Saturday 18 August 2012

ATM fees

There are some things in life that I find I can avoid doing.  These include paying interest on my credit card and paying ATM fees.
Yet the Reserve Bank (and the Age?) seem to be surprised at this - see
http://www.theage.com.au/business/banks-2-fee-has-big-effect-20120809-23x13.html

The article states that economists did not think that the usage of "foreign" ATMs would drop with the advent of a reminder by the machine that a fee will be charged for a transaction.

Well, I'm not surprised in the least.    ATMs are everywhere, and the reality of life is that, for most of us, our usual patterns  of activity don't change a great deal.  This means that most of us are familiar with the location of the various ATMs within the course of our daily activities, so it isn't hard to arrange to withdraw money from one's "own" bank.

So, pay for the privilege of using the ATM machine on the right hand end of the array, instead of waiting a few seconds for the machine with your bank's brand on it to become available?  I don't think so!

In fairness, perhaps the surprising thing is that there were so many "foreign" transactions before the reminder screen appeared on ATMs, when the only notification of the fee was a debit on the bank statement.

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