Read the fine print on banks’ ATM fees cut [IMG] On face value,...

Read the fine print on banks’ ATM fees cut


On face value, CBA boss Ian Narev and NAB chief Andrew Thorburn’s axing of ATM fees for customers of other banks seems so beneficent.

But as is often the case with our four pillars, read the fine print and things aren’t quite as generous as the headline.

Thousands of machines in the CBA and NAB ATM networks have been carved out from the $2 fee cut, so that Australian banking customers are still some way from achieving ATM nirvana.

Narev’s CBA got the jump on its peers on Sunday with the announcement that it was scrapping the fee, but there was a major caveat — it doesn’t include the network at CBA-owned Bankwest.

Bankwest’s 830 ATMs make up about one fifth of CBA’s network. Most of them, about 650, are on the east coast under a deal with billionaire Russ Withers’network of 7-Eleven stores.


Margin Call also understands those cash machines are some of the most profitable in the CBA empire.

CBA says the contracts between it and the Withers empire are now “under review”, although no one at Slurpee HQ, aka 7-Eleven head office, seemed to be aware of any impending changes.

Bankwest has been a major lender to 7-Eleven franchisees, extending them credit even when all other banks ran away due to the network’s wages scandal, so hopefully a peaceful outcome can be negotiated.
Also exempt from the fee-free bonanza are CBA ATMs in Bali, so holiday-makers looking to a familiar brand for a rupiah refill will still get stung.

Customers should also beware of the wider network in Thorburn’s NAB empire.

While the NAB-owned machines (1500 odd) are free for all, the much bigger, largely NAB-stamped rediATM network has been exempted from the fee cut for non-customers.

The word out of NAB’s Docklands HQ is that the arrangement for those 3100 rediATM machines (which are owned and operated by Cuscal) is “still being worked through”.

But there’s no equivocation over at Shayne Elliott’s ANZ or Brian Hartzer’s Westpac or Hartzer’s subsidiaries St George Bank, Bank SA and Bank of Melbourne.

And critics say the big four are all the same.

Hungry hippos

Which bank’s ATMs ate hundreds of cards from one of its big four rivals over the weekend?
CBA’s, of course.

And what was the reason?

Margin Call understands the chomping of about 200 cards resulted from a glitch related to CBA’s — perhaps a bit hasty — decision to scrap the $2 charge from its ATM network for non-customers.

It’s been that sort of year for Australia’s biggest bank.


http://www.theaustralian.com.au/bus...t/news-story/934f793135716fd65a0ac33825bc7d92