Banks ditch ATM fees

Big Four trio quick to follow CBA’s lead

IN A multi-million-dollar windfall for consumers, all of the Big Four banks have agreed to axe fees for customers of other banks.

As revealed exclusively by News Corp yesterday, the Commonwealth Bank was the first of the Big Four to announce it was ditching the $2 ATM fee for non-customers.

Their decision was the catalyst for Westpac, then ANZ and NAB to announce they too would remove ATM fees.

Australians paid about $500 million in fees in the past year for withdrawals from ATMs owned by institutions other than their own, News Corp analysis revealed.

The move will deliver customers savings running into hundreds of millions of dollars a year after a long and hard fight by consumer groups, including Choice, who have called out the banks for unfairly charging customers to access their own money.

Axing the charge means customers – regardless of who they bank with – will be able to access CBA, Westpac, ANZ, NAB, St George, BankSA and Bank of Melbourne ATMs and not pay a cent.

CBA change already applies but the other banks will take several weeks until fee-free ATM use is implemented.

ING already allows its customers to use any ATMs in Australia for free.

Consumer group Choice’s spokesman Tom Godfrey said the banks “dropped like flies” after CBA’s announcement was revealed and quickly followed suit.

“This spells the end of ATM fees,” he said.

“The banks are all desperate to show they are competing at a time when the Productivity Commission has the spotlight on them around a lack of competition.”

The banks were required to deliver submissions earlier this month to the Productivity Commission’s inquiry into competition in the financial system.

Treasurer Scott Morrison yesterday said Australians were “sick and tired of all these fees which mount up”.

“The only way you can cut through on this is if you make your banking system more competitive and you put the pressure back on,” he said.

The Treasurer also promised they would be watching to make sure the big banks didn’t sting customers in other areas after dropping the fees.

ATM fees were rolled out in Australia in 2009 and have remained a bugbear for consumers slugged each time they access money from an ATM not within their own bank’s network.

Australian Banker’s Association’s chief executive Anna Bligh said the dumping of ATM fees by the Big Four banks was a “boon for customers”.

“A competitive banking system is good for customers and good for the sector,” she said.