Australians delivered $47.3 million windfall after ATM fees dumped

SINCE the dumping of the most-hated ATM fee charges in Australia, consumers have saved tens of millions of dollars.

THE dumping of ATM fees by the nation’s biggest banks has delivered Australians a massive $47.3 million windfall.

Banking customers have pounced on the opportunity to use ATMs free of charge since the major banks revealed they were removing the dreaded fee from September.

New analysis by consumer group Choice has revealed there has been an additional 1,996,000 ATM withdrawals from September to November at “foreign” ATMs based on latest Reserve Bank of Australia data.

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Australian banking customers can access the big four ATM machines without incurring a charge.

It shows 23.6 million transactions were made at “foreign” ATMs by banking customers during this period and assumes the customer would have previously been charged $2 on each transaction.

News Corp revealed last year the Commonwealth Bank was the first of the big four banks to remove the charge and within hours the remaining big three banks announced they would follow suit.

But Choice spokesman Tom Godfrey said the move to dump the charge should have come years earlier before the banks reaped hefty profits from the fee.

Choice spokesman Tom Godfrey said the banning of ATM charges should have happened well before 2017.

“Had the banks acted when Choice first called for an end to these fees in 2011, consumers would have saved hundreds of millions of dollars,’’ he said.

“With the Banking Royal Commission underway this is a clear example of how the banks failure to act on this issue over many years has financially punished their customers.”

The Royal Commission’s first public hearing will begin in Melbourne on February 12.

The Australian Bankers’ Association chief executive officer Anna Bligh said the scrapping of ATM fees was a “a multimillion-dollar win for customers”.

The introduction of a fee to use ATMs in Australia was introduced in March 2009.

“It’s clear that bank customers are taking every opportunity to use fee free ATMs,’’ she said.

“Abolishing ATM fees is just one of a number of initiatives driven and funded by banks to create better products and boost choice for customers, including reducing interest rates on credit cards and offering fee-free transaction accounts.”

Not all ATM nationally are free, thousands of machines which are still privately owned by operators charge customers to use their machines and financial institutions including the Bendigo Bank still charge non-customers $2 to use their machines.

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