As debate on the recently reintroduced ATM charge gathers
momentum, Nigerian banking community has been urged to embrace the policy,
considering its potential to guarantee unhindered flow of financial services to
bank customers. The remote-on-us automated teller machine (ATM) withdrawal
charge of N65 introduced by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), which takes off
today from September 1, 2014, stakeholders argue is designed to ensure better
services for customers, increase healthy competition amongst banks, reduce wear
and tear on the ATM machines, so that they can serve the customers longer, and
checkmate increasing cash transaction, which negates the cash-less policy.
These were the reasons given by the Central Bank of Nigeria for the
introduction of N65 remote-on-us ATM charges, which will only be charged after
the third ATM withdrawal in a month. Remote-on-us withdrawal is the case where
a card holder goes to the ATM of a bank other than his bank to withdraw cash.
According to the CBN, charging of fee on interbank network is a global best
practice and widely acceptable norm. It is used to pay the cost for the
remuneration of the switches, ATM monitoring and fit-notes processing. It noted
that failure to charge this fee was already discouraging banks and poses a
threat to financial interoperability.
Sun Newspaper
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