No more ATM withdrawal fees

Posted by Felix Okoli on Sunday January 27, 2013 at 13:16:56:

Nigerian banks have agreed to stop all inter-bank fees normally charged for ATM withdrawals. The Bankers' committee came to this agreement during their meeting in Abuja, late 2012. Although for the average bank customer, they may hardly bother about this when doing a single withdrawal but banks have been generating billions of naira yearly from it and the cumulative effect of making such withdrawals from your account could be significant to ignore.

Initially, when it comes to interbank ATM withdrawals, bank customers were normally charged about N100 as a withdrawal fee and they get notified of this prior to making a withdrawal from a bank that didn't issue the card. That had further increased the expenses loyal customers had when dealing with banks despite the desire for a cashless economy spearheaded by same banks.

It was only a few years ago when ATM card were introduced into the industry as Nigerians were used to making a lot of withdrawals over the counter. As the ATMs rolled in and also withdrawal charges for funds below N20,000, customers were gradually forced to start making use of ATM cards for making daily petty withdrawals. However and soon enough, Nigerian banks started charging their customers inter-bank ATM withdrawal fees for people who used a different bank's ATM other than their issuing bank.

Customers had for long groaned over the multiple and growing bank charges being introduced into the country despite the fact that ATM services were still far from perfect. Even till date, there are still merchants who prefer not to have anything to do with bank cards such as ATMs.

Some people don't like ATMs just because it gives them easy access to money which they want to keep far away in their savings. Others simply gave up the idea of ATM cards just because of bad experience such as hidden and multiple charges.

Despite the challenges however, ATM usage in Nigeria has brought some benefits such as faster access to withdrawals and no more bank queues, 24 hrs banking, cashless payments and more security at home.

The good news now is that you can make those ATM withdrawals anytime you want and from any bank you want without having to pay any fee for the service. Kudos to the Nigerian Banking committee and the CBN!