The treasurer of Australia reportedly has launched a probe into the fees ATM providers are charging at machines deployed in the Australian outback.
Wayne Swan, who is also the country’s deputy prime minister, has set up a Reserve Bank of Australia/Treasury task force and has asked it to submit a report by Feb. 28 on the provision, fees and impact of ATMs in remote communities and to suggest methods to fix any problems it finds, the Sydney Morning Herald reported Jan. 21.
The treasurer also has asked the task force to submit a report by June on the effect of the last set of Reserve Bank rules on the use of ATMs.
In December 2008, the central bank introduced a set of rules that prohibited ATM providers from charging banks and instead charge the customers directly at the time of transaction. (
At the time, Peter Arnold, a financial analyst with Australia-based Canstar Cannex, predicted that the new ATM rules would affect rural consumers the most because the scarcity of ATMs would prompt deployers to charge higher fees than those assessed at ATMs in cities where the machines are more plentiful in number (
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