A wrong righted !

In an era where the Automated Teller Machine ( ATM ) replaced bank branches little thought was given to the communities which lived in outback Australia.   Some of these places were served by just a single central store operating during limited hours and usually that store also served as an agency for one of the four big banks.

It seems that achieving uniformity saw most of these agencies replaced with an ATM, but an ATM owned and operated by a " for profit " provider, not by a bank, and as a result transaction fees were entirely a matter for the ATM's owner.

We city folk grizzle at the fee gouging the banks imposed when they forced us to use ATM's by closing branches, but they are only a pale shadow of the fee regimen that exists in remote areas.    It can cost as much as ten dollars to make a single transaction - whether that is to withdraw money or simply to have your account balance show on the screen.   In many cases, remote residents lost twenty percent of their pension to ATM fees.

In all fairness, there are extraordinary costs involved in providing an ATM in a remote location.   They are a complex piece of machinery that needs regular servicing, and  it can be more than a days journey for an armoured money truck and it's security crew to travel just to replenish the machines cash drawer.   It would be grossly unfair to claim that high ATM fees in remote areas was purely opportunistic greed.   But they are still an unfair impost on those who have no other way of accessing their money.

All that will change by the end of this year.   ATM access fees in remote areas will drop to comparison with those at city locations.  Along with the license to be a bank, these institutions have a responsibility to service their customers - wherever they happen to be located and for once the banks will have to pickup the tab.

Whether this is done by arrangement with the private owners of remote ATM's or by the banks installing their own machines is a matter for negotiation, but the important outcome is that people who live a long way from city services will no longer lose a big part of their income in accessing their own money !