In issue 97:10:02 ("ATM Fees --Bank's Perspective") we provided a breakdown of ATM fees and who gets the revenue. Now, a study by PULSE discovers who pays them.
Rice University Professor Dr. Richard R. Batsell, through a Houston-based research organization, conducted the study. The research was commissioned by PULSE EFT Association and was also combined with usage information collected by PULSE.
According to the study, only those who want to pay for the convenience pay ATM fees, and a large percentage of the fees are paid by a small percentage of consumers. Those who don't wish to pay simply find other ways to get cash.
Among the findings:
1. Seventy percent of adults have never paid convenience access fees.2. More than 80% of those surveyed say they avoid ATMs where they know convenience fees are charged. 3. Of those who have paid convenience fees, 27% say they have paid more than $1.
4. Eighteen percent of cardholders pay 60% of the total convenience fees collected.
5. Ninety percent of respondents feel they are sufficiently informed by their financial institutions of the ATM fees they are charged and less than 2% have ever switched their accounts to another institution because of such fees.
Stan Paur, president of PULSE, welcomed the results. According to Paur, "When our association was advised in a judicial proceeding that PULSE should allow optional convenience fees, we presumed there would be disastrous results for our network. Instead, those revenues have fueled the enormous growth in ATM deployment at non-financial institution sites, which would not be economically feasible without such fees."
According to Paur, 40% of ATMs sold last year were to operators outside the financial institutions industry.
