20 July 2005
The government has stated that it believes that fee-charging ATMs are improving rather than damaging consumer choice.
It has welcomed the 20,000 fee-charging ATMs and does not believe that they pose a threat to the free cash machine network, reports the BBC.
In March, concerns were expressed by a parliamentary select committee that the network of fee-charging machines was located predominantly in areas where high street banks had left.
This meant that consumers were paying around £140 million a year simply to access their own money.
Opponents of such fee-charging ATMs are disappointed by the government's comments.
Stuart Bernau from Nationwide said: "Consumers will pay more than £200 million this year to withdraw their own money from cash machines.
"We believe that without government action we could be looking back in five years and saying: 'Remember when access to cash was free?'"
© 2008 Adfero Ltd
Content for the uSwitch.com market news service is provided by a third party, Adfero Ltd. Whilst uSwitch.com makes reasonable efforts to check the reliability of this content, uSwitch.com does not guarantee the accuracy thereof or endorse the views or opinions given by Adfero Ltd, unless expressly stated otherwise.