ATM Fees Reach Record High

The fees customers pay to withdraw money have increased 21% over the past five years.

October 06, 2015

NEW YORK – The ATM fees that customers must pay to access their money in convenience stores and other ATM locations has hit a record high, the latest survey from Bankrate.com reveals. Now customers have to pay an average of $4.52 in ATM fees every time they withdraw money from an ATM that’s out of their bank or credit union’s network. That’s an increase of 21% over the past five years.

Even though technology costs of operating ATMs have been declining, financial institutions are still raising ATM fees, making it more expensive for customers to access cash at ATMs in convenience stores to make their purchases. “As banks have lost money in other areas, they've tried to make up for it by raising fees,” a new NBC News article states.

A few online banks offer customers and retailers less expensive ATM fees, according to the article, and those include USAA, Ally and HSBC Direct.

"The most important thing for consumers to know is that all of these fees are completely avoidable," Bankrate.com's chief financial analyst Greg McBride said in a statement. "Shop around for a bank or credit union that fits your lifestyle so that you can keep more of your hard-earned cash."

Gray Taylor, executive director of Conexxus, told NACS Daily that the banking industry “has saddled itself with an outdated branch system that fosters inefficiency. We have three to four times the branches per capita of more efficient systems found in other G20 nations where such fees are non-existent.  The escalation of ATM fees subsidizes these empty branches and has little to do with the actual operation of the ATM network.”

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