Australians minimising fees to access cash

Sydney, 8 July 2010: The Australian Bankers’ Association’s (ABA) analysis of payments data demonstrate that customers are minimising bank fees when accessing cash.

Steven Münchenberg, Chief Executive of the ABA, said: “Australians are accessing their cash using some of the cheapest methods – cash-out at EFTPOS and using ATMs which belong to their bank or are in a networked arrangement¹.  This means that they are minimising fees.”

Over 2009, two-thirds of transactions involved customers taking cash-out using an ATM which belongs to the customer’s bank or using EFTPOS.  This is up by a significant six per cent last year, from 60.6% in 2008.

Mr Münchenberg said: “Changes introduced last year mean that consumers are now warned that a fee is payable when they use an ATM that does not belong to their bank or isn’t in a networked arrangement. Consumers are given the choice to cancel the transaction, so that they don’t pay an ATM operator fee.”

Banks provide their customers information on how to find the closest ATM owned by the bank or in a networked arrangement. Telephone banking staff will help customers locate the closest ATM or bank websites have tools to locate the nearest ATM – wherever you are in Australia.
 
Some banks also have SMS tools. For example, if you SMS your suburb and state a telephone number, the bank will reply with the addresses of nearby ATMs.

In 2009, customers of Authorised Deposit-taking Institutions (ADIs) conducted 1.1 billion transactions with a value of $177.2 billion to access cash using their credit card, an EFTPOS terminal or an ATM.
 
Just over 3 million of these cash-out transactions are conducted per day with a value of almost half a billion dollars ($485 million) per day or 21 million per week ($3.4 billion per week).
See over for table.

For further information: 

Heather Wellard
Director, Public Relations
Phone: 02 8298 0411
Mobile: 0409 830 439
 
ENDS

[1] A networked ATM is when a bank enters an agreement with another financial institution/s to enable customers to access their ATMs, even though they aren’t a customer of that institution.