ATM users return despite charges
27 June 2009
Early March saw the introduction of the direct charging initiative where customers would be charged $2 for use of an ATM that was not their banks own. After much publicity and criticism it seemed that consumers turned away with the number of own bank ATM usage figures increased from 54.2 percent to 60.0 percent for the month of March.
However, this has begun to slip with recent figures showing a decline to 58.6 percent in April with predictions this will continue according to an analysis by MWE Consulting on Reserve Bank of Australia data.
Such result seems to demonstrate that while customers were initially put off by the $2 fee attached to using a foreign bank ATM the convenience factor has now come but into play with people now starting to use competitors ATMs and are paying that additional $2 fee.
Of course, there were always fees involved with the use of a competitor bank ATM it seemed that the full charge of $2 for a direct charge was highly off-putting for many Australians, causing them to seek their own bank ATMs wherever possible, and somewhat interrupting that traditionally strong revenue stream associated with ATM fees.
Before the introduction of the direct charging fees ATMs customer use of foreign ATMs was sitting at approximately half of all transaction with 47 percent of all 867 million transactions in 2008 being completed on a foreign ATM sessions according to a previous report by MWE Consulting.
There were 27,081 ATMs in Australia as of the end of 2008, an increase from 21,266 in 2003 with figures showing that the average foreign ATM transaction will be approximately $50 less than on their own bank ATM.
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