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Chapter 1 - Foreign ATM fees and charges
Background to the inquiry on ATM fee structures
1.1
On 25 July 2002, the Chairman of the
Parliamentary Joint Committee on Corporations and Financial Services announced
that the Committee had agreed to inquire into the level of banking and
financial services available to Australians living in rural, regional and
remote areas of the country. The inquiry was to place particular focus on:
- options for making additional banking services available to rural and
regional communities, including the potential for shared banking facilities;
- options for expansion of banking facilities through non‑traditional
channels including new technologies;
- the level of service currently available to rural and regional
residents; and
- international experiences and policies designed to enhance and improve
the quality of rural banking services.
1.2
The Committee tabled its report, Money Matters in the Bush, in January
2004. Overall, the Committee
believed that banking and financial service providers should strive to deliver
the same level and quality of service to country Australia as they provide to
metropolitan areas. It accepted, however, that in some cases this objective
cannot be achieved on a commercially viable basis. Nonetheless, the Committee argued that access to a basic
banking service is an essential service—that all Australians should have
affordable and ready access to a deposit account that receives funds and can be
used to make payments. It went on to conclude:
In communities where it is commercially unsustainable for banks
to provide face-to-face banking services, the banking industry has an
obligation to take all reasonable measures to ensure that consumers have
alternative means to access their account. In the Committee’s view this
obligation extends to providing the education and training necessary for
consumers to effectively use the alternatives; working with and providing
assistance to communities to find satisfactory solutions to their banking
problems; and ensuring that bank practices such as charges and fees and
interest rates on loans do not discriminate against people in regional, rural
and remote Australia.[1]
1.3
In turning specifically to the use of ATMs, the
Committee expressed its concern with the fees being charged on foreign ATMs. It
noted the discrepancy between fees incurred for using an ATM of one’s own bank
compared with another bank’s ATM.[2]
The following table clearly shows the differences in charges for using an ATM
operated by one’s own bank as against another bank’s ATM. In 2002, the charge
was over double.
Table 1.1: Deposit Account Transaction Charges of Major
Banks (a) [3]
|
1991
|
1995
|
1998
|
1999
|
2000
|
2001
|
2002
|
Deposit accounts:
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Account-Servicing (per month) (b)
|
0.00
|
2.00
|
3.50
|
3.75
|
3.75
|
3.75
|
5.25
|
Fees per excess transaction
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
- Counter withdrawals
|
0.50
|
1.00
|
2.00
|
2.15
|
2.15
|
2.75
|
2.50
|
- Cheques
|
0.50
|
0.70
|
0.65
|
0.75
|
0.75
|
0.90
|
1.00
|
- Own bank’s ATM
|
0.30
|
0.40
|
0.55
|
0.60
|
0.60
|
0.65
|
0.60
|
- Other bank’s ATM
|
0.30
|
0.40
|
1.05
|
1.30
|
1.40
|
1.40
|
1.40
|
- EFTPOS
|
0.30
|
0.40
|
0.45
|
0.50
|
0.50
|
0.50
|
0.45
|
- Telephone
|
NA
|
NA
|
0.30
|
0.35
|
0.35
|
0.45
|
0.45
|
- Internet
|
NA
|
NA
|
0.20
|
0.30
|
0.30
|
0.25
|
0.25
|
Number of free transactions (monthly) c)
|
11
|
11
|
8
|
8
|
8
|
8
|
|
Range of minimum balances required to waive account-servicing
fees ($)
|
0-500
|
300-500
|
500
|
500-2000
|
500-2000
|
2000
|
|
- Average for four largest banks. Based on public
information on selected, widely used accounts. As at June of each
year.
- Some banks offer rebates/waivers based on
either the transaction account balance or the overall ‘relationship’ balance.
- All accounts that charge a monthly
account-servicing fee allow some fee-free transactions.
Sources: Cannex; RBA
|
1.4
Considering the increasing reliance on ATMs as a
primary means to access cash and obtain an account balance, the Committee believed
this situation was especially relevant for people living in regional and remote
Australia where there are fewer
banking alternatives. The following table shows the rate at which ATMs have
mushroomed throughout Australia
over recent years.
Table 1.2: ATMs in Australia 1990–2002[4]
Points of Access to the
Australian Payments System
|
|
ATMs
|
|
ATMs
|
June 1990
|
4 636
|
June 1997
|
8 670
|
June 1991
|
4 956
|
June 1998
|
9 472
|
June 1992
|
5 314
|
June 1999
|
10 089
|
June 1993
|
5 483
|
June 2000
|
11 819
|
June 1994
|
5 910
|
June 2001
|
13 289
|
June 1995
|
6 422
|
June 2002
|
16 398
|
June 1996
|
7 465
|
June 2003
|
21 603
|
|
|
|
|
1.5
The Committee’s report, Money Matters in the Bush, discussed briefly the
work being undertaken by the ATM Industry Steering Group (AISG) and the reforms
proposed to change the current ATM fee structure. In light of the weight of
evidence about the lack of competition in some country areas, the Committee was not convinced that the AISG had
fully and thoroughly taken account of the absence of competition in some areas
of regional, rural and remote Australia when proposing its reforms. The Committee recommended that:
... the ATM Industry Steering Group include in its considerations
on the reform of ATM interchange fee arrangements the special circumstances of
fees and charges associated with the use of foreign ATMs in rural, regional and
remote Australia. The focus of the group would be on building into any proposed
reform of the ATM fee structure safeguards that would ensure that people living
in country towns and remote communities do not incur significantly higher fees
or charges for using a foreign ATM and that an unreasonable or unwarranted differential
in fees and charges between those in rural and remote areas and those in
metropolitan areas does not develop.[5]
1.6
Having made this recommendation, the Committee
nonetheless decided that further inquiry was necessary to determine whether
those living in regional, rural and remote Australia would reap the benefits of any proposed reform to the ATM fee
structure. The Committee held a public hearing devoted to this matter on 5 November 2003 and has produced this
supplementary report as a means to highlight its concerns.
Conduct of the inquiry
1.7
The Committee did not call for additional
submissions on the matter of ATM fees. It invited a number of banking and
consumer organisations and groups representing the interests of people living
in country Australia to attend
a special public hearing to debate the work being undertaken by the AISG.
1.8
In preparing this report, the Committee drew
heavily on the following sources:
- Reserve Bank of Australia and the Australian Competition and
Consumer Commission, Debit and Credit Card Schemes in Australia:
A Study of Interchange Fees and Access;
- Parliamentary Joint Statutory Committee on Corporations and Securities,
Report on Fees on Electronic and Telephone Banking;
- ATM Industry Steering Group, Direct Charging for ‘Foreign’
Automatic Teller Machine (ATM) Transactions in Australia;
- Australian Consumers’ Association, submission to the ATM Industry
Steering Group on Interchange Fee Reform; and
- oral evidence taken during the Committee’s public hearing, which
took the form of a roundtable discussion, held on 5 November 2003.
In addition, the Committee relied on the evidence presented
to it throughout its inquiry into the level of banking and financial services available
to Australians living in rural, regional and remote Australia.
1.9
The Committee received a total of 133 submissions to the broader inquiry together
with a number of supplementary ones. A list of submissions is contained in
Appendix 1. All but three of the written submissions were made public
documents.
1.10
After initial consideration of the submissions,
the Committee commenced its program of public hearings in Canberra on 12 and 14 November 2002. They were followed by further
hearings in Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Darwin as well
as in some regional areas including Tanunda and Jamestown in South Australia,
Yarraman, Nanango, Toowoomba and Boonah in Queensland, and Daly River and Alice
Springs in the Northern
Territory. The Committee also made field visits to a
number of small towns including Yacka and Port Broughton in South Australia, and Blackbutt and Crows
Nest in Queensland to inspect
their banking facilities. As noted earlier, the Committee held a special
roundtable discussion on 5 November 2003 to take evidence on the ATM fee structure.
1.11
Details of the hearings and the witnesses who
appeared at them are contained in Appendix 2. The Hansard transcript of
evidence taken at the hearings was made available on the internet.
Acknowledgments
1.12
The Committee thanks everyone who contributed to
the inquiry.
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