Bankers Committee To Probe New Alleged ATM Charges

The Bankers Committee said yesterday that it would investigate the alleged introduction of new charges on the use of Automated Teller Machine cards (ATM) by banks.

The Managing Director of Diamond Bank Plc, Mr Alex Oti, said this while briefing newsmen on the outcome of the committee meeting in Abuja.

Reports say that the committee, at its meeting in November 2012, unanimously agreed to remove all charges on the use of ATM cards from the shoulders of bank customers.

“A decision was taken at the last bankers’ committee meeting to remove the ATM charges; as far as I know, the banks have removed that.

“It is new to me when you say that banks are now introducing new charges on ATM.

“We will confirm that, even without a formal report, we will try and investigate it, every bank was supposed to comply, if there is any that is not complying, I don’t think it is acceptable with the bankers committee.

“It is new to me and just hearing this for the first time.’’

Some banks had in the last couple of months introduced “card maintenance fee’’ on transactions with the ATM cards.

First Bank PLC alerts to its customers in some of its ATM machines read: “Dear valued customer, in order to serve you better, from March 2013, a monthly N100 card maintenance fee will be charged for all cash withdrawals within the month.’’

Oti said that the committee was working to ensure that banks would follow the recent publications from the apex bank on the guideline on bank charges which took effect from April 1.

He said that the idea of the guideline was to streamline bank charges so that customers would be charged less.

Commenting on other issues discussed at the meeting, Oti said that the committee looked at how best the banks could support the real sector of the economy, especially the Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) .