(9 September 2009 – Australia) RBA research has shown that the ATM reforms and direct fee charging is resulting in customers sticking to their bank’s own ATMs.The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) research has shown that customers are becoming more likely to use their own ATMs because of the cost of using a foreign ATM since the change to direct charging.
RBA figures show a 10 percent increase in own ATM usage since the new rules were put in place in March this year.
Before the rules came in, there was about a 60-40 percent split between transactions at customers’ own bank machines and transactions at rivals machines, an RBA spokesman said.
The proportion using their own machines has risen to more than 65 percent and obviously transactions at foreign machines have fallen to 35 percent, the RBA spokesman said.
This equates to over five percent of all ATM transactions changing from foreign ATMs to own-bank ATMs in the past six months because of the change in fees.
The RBA sees the move as very encouraging, as one of the primary motivators behind the switch to direct chagrining was to promote competition in price.
Since the direct charging legislation began, a number of banks have teamed up to provide a wider network, including the recently approved NAB/rediATM combination, saving customers on a wider range of ATMs.
ING Direct also recently announced the introduction of an account that lets customers use any ATM for free.