Goodbye CBA ATMs!Written on the 2 December 2020  "Goodbye CBA ATMs!")
By ATM2GO Director Jenny Marsh Let's all remember back to September 2017 when the CBA announced that they would provide fee free ATM transactions to all card holders. This was closely followed by the other big 3 providers matching this fee free offer. Card holders thought they'd won the lottery, and those card holders who thought it was only fair that they had free access to their own money cried "about time!"Those of us in the industry were left rolling our eyes and shaking our heads. No profitable commercial enterprise can provide a service like this and not get paid for it. The truth is that it costs money to run an ATM network purchasing machines, labour to acquire sites, installation, physically cashing the machines, purchasing cash, the cost of processing the transactions, the modems to facilitate the processing of the transactions and providing "after sales service" to patrons who have issues with their transactions. Then there's upgrades and maintenance after the installation and let's not forget a myriad of insurances. It's impossible to provide this service without a fee which is why we are now going to see the CBA, ANZ and Westpac ATM's disappear. Any CBA, ANZ and Westpac machine that is not physically located in a bank branch will be rebranded and managed by one of two commercial businesses. And these businesses need to make money to cover their costs, with the rebrand will come a convenience fee to cover their costs. This is a very welcome change to those of us who are independent operators in the market. For many years the big 4 have had a large presence in the shopping centres, to not only provide convenience to their own customers but to promote their brand. Advertising is an expensive exercise in any shopping centre but if you are providing a service as part of the branding experience then you can negate some of the cost. By providing fee free transactions these ATMs were no longer covering the cost of providing the service let alone contributing to the cost of rent as part of the corporate branding. If you don't like paying ATM fees ask your bank if they have a fee free transaction account that will allow you to make fee free withdrawals. If they don't have an option for you, maybe it's time to change banks!
The following banks refund ATM transactions, follow the links to find out more. |
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