CUTS to free-to-use cash machines beginning this weekend threaten to wipe out four in 10 of them, a Labour MP has warned, as he pointed out that while MPs get free access to cash at Westminster, constituents often face paying as much as £2 a time to withdraw their own money.
Backbencher Ged Killen, who last month introduced private legislation in Parliament to ban ATM charges and protect access to cash said: “This is an under-the-radar cut which will have a big impact on day-to-day life, particularly in suburban and rural areas where ATM closures have been highest so far and where they threaten to get worse.”
Marking the release of new Which? research on cashpoint closures, the MP for Rutherglen and Hamilton West pointed out how there were more free-to-use cash machines in the House of Commons than there were in the whole of Cambuslang Main Street in his constituency.
“Many streets in the UK will only have one ATM which charges a fee while in Parliament there are two free-to-use ATMs in one corridor and a further four just a couple of minutes’ walk away.
“No one should have to pay to access their own cash. However, as these cuts begin to bite more and more of my constituents as well as others across the country may be forced to do so.”
Today, LINK, the network body which sets the funding for the free-to-use ATM network, began the first of four annual cuts to the interchange rate, a small fee levied on banks every time a withdrawal is made at a free-to-use cash machine.
This, explained Mr Killen, would result in the funding for free-to-use ATMs being cut by 20 per cent by 2023.
ATMIA, the ATM industry body, has warned that if this full 20 per cent cut were implemented, as many as 30,000 cash machines could close; 40 per cent of the total UK network.
This, warned the Labour MP, threatened to create “cash machine deserts” and leave many high streets and rural communities with only fee-charging ATMs.
The Scottish MP explained LINK had said it expected up to 18 per cent of free-to-use ATMs would close as a result of the 20 per cent cut in funding.
But he also noted that ATM providers believed the closures were likely to be double what LINK had predicted and rural areas were already suffering more than urban ones.
“LINK has so far failed to meet its promises and it is time for the regulator to seriously look at stepping in,” declared Mr Killen.
He added: “So long as demand for cash exists, access should be protected.
“I am calling on the Payment Systems Regulator to conduct a full market review of the free-to-use ATM network to establish demand and want a ban on ATM charges so that banks, not consumers, meet the costs of providing free access to cash.”
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