NDP calls for ban on ATM fees

[Hakan]

Yes and all of those costs are more than paid for by everyone paying 5 to 10 bucks a month for the monthly banking fee.

[Ha Ha Stupid Oilers]

Originally Posted by Hakan

What?

What the hell do you think non-client means?

I feel like I'm explaining something to George Foreman here.

The monthly fees that you and everyone else pay to their bank for the privilege of you giving them your cash for them to go invest elsewhere is justififed to cover the security and whatever other expenses incurred to maintain their ATM machines.

Therefore all of the fixed and significant variable costs are already covered and then some!

Meaning that the marginal cost of other people using that ATM is essentially zero. Can I get a holler here?

Otherwise, I'm done.

In the perspective of the bank who owns the ATM, a "non-client" is also referred as a someone who isnt an account holder, but is withdrawing funds from another bank. If all the service charges are charged from the other bank who the non-client normally banks with, why should the bank who owns the ATM absorb the costs?
It works both ways, but you seem to generalize ATM usage altogether when you made that assumption

If banks didnt compensate for charging you $1.50 to let you use their machines when you're withdrawing it from another bank, you'd be looking at a higher monthly service fee at your own bank than what you're normally charged. With your own logic, you probably think that Money Orders, wire transfers and other services are covered in your monthly service fees

It's funny to think you know the system when you have no idea how it works.
You still havent broken down the expenses for a running ATM to justify this statement:

Does anyone know what the marginal cost is for a non-client to withdraw $20 bucks from an ATM?

I'll tell you right now, it's nowhere close to $1.50.

[Ha Ha Stupid Oilers]

Originally Posted by Hakan

Yes and all of those costs are more than paid for by everyone paying 5 to 10 bucks a month for the monthly banking fee.

LOL!!!

some people are just so naive....

[Hakan]

Well thanks for demonstrating to me and everyone else who knows what marginal cost means that you don't know what it means.

Hakan out.

[Ha Ha Stupid Oilers]

Originally Posted by Hakan

Well thanks for demonstrating to me and everyone else who knows what marginal cost means that you don't know what it means.

Hakan out.

Thanks for your ignorance comments on how you think bank service fees are dispersed

btw, labour is still not constant for each ATM they service. Individual trips need to be made to each machine to service it and refill it

[RougeUnderoos]

Originally Posted by Ha Ha Stupid Oilers

I'd like to know how you figure the marginal costs is nowhere near $1.50

while you're on the topic, since you seem to think you know what the expenses are, tell me how much it costs for an ATM machine, maintenance, security guards to fill up the machines with cash and the transportation of it, monitoring and security measures used within the network.

If you could tell me what the breakdown of the expenses of an ATM machine, I wont think you're full of ****

Well you obviously know the expenses are. Would you care to share that information?

I find it hard to believe that it costs anywhere near $4, or even $1.50, for me to get a hundred bucks out of a cash machine. Even if you factor in the security, gas, labour and the bullets in the guard's gun, it can't be all that expensive to get those 5 little pieces of paper in (and out) of the machine.

[Ha Ha Stupid Oilers]

those guards/service men arent paid and trained like those paladin guys who waltz around getting paid a few bucks more than minimum wage.
They also dont drive in Smart cars either

also not everyone takes out just $100 at once

Im sorry if I sound rude, but saying it that way is easier to understand

A guy like Hakan seem to think that adding a new machine is just slightly more work for one guy to monitor at the Bank's HQ

[Devils'Advocate]

Yes, I'm quite sure that if we get rid of ATM fees, the banks will not have the money to pay for the armoured cars that fill the machines. The banks will go bankrupt in days.

In the U.S. many small banks swallow the cost as "the price of doing business". Profits are lower for these small banks but they are trying to pull people away from the big monsters.
Example: http://www.wainwrightbank.com/html/a...cles/0005.html

If this were to pass, our oligopoly wouldn't stand for a decrease in profits. They simply would find other areas to gouge us even more. Increasing monthly service charges, increasing interest rates, etc... My guess is that Jack knows this full well and it will mean the banks shifting where the money is coming from. Instead of Joe Student needing to pay $3 to get a $20 for a pizza at the university cafeteria, the profits will be drained from the guy with the $1,000,000 mortgage.

[ken0042]

Originally Posted by FireFly

I don't mind paying the other bank for using their machine, it's their money. I mind paying my bank for using another bank's machines because they don't have enough to go around.

Best comment of this thread.

No matter what the costs are, the question remains- why are we being charged twice? As HHSO points out- maintaining an ATM costs money. I can see that. Why then does my bank charge me for not using one of their ATMs? You would think that they would want me to use somebody else's; one less transaction for them to have to pay Brinks to refill their ATM for.

As many have said; including myself- I don't mind there being some fee for using another ATM. Back when Interac first came about the fee was $1 (or less) and was charged by my bank; with the explanation that they were charging me a fee because the other bank charged them. Today I get charged twice, and I for one would like to know why I pay the other bank when my bank is charging me so they can pay the other bank?

If the fee is going to be $4, make it $4. Not $2 twice. I always say- give me a product and tell me how much its going to cost me. Don't make it like my Enmax electric bill where there are no fewer than 11 charges on there for one product.

[ericschand]

Dion:

"What goes on behind the scenes is labour. Someone has to pay for it."

And just operating a bank branch has no labour? Whether it's
delivered to a bank or an ATM, the cost structure will be similar,
given what your friend told you.

But to pay $1.50 to the ATM owner, and then $1.50 to my bank.
What did my bank have to do with the labour of that machine?

fotze:

- Cheese at Safeway, what a rip easily 40% than superstore.

You can go to Superstore then.

- Cords and cables at futureshop and big box electronics stores, you can get the same ones at memory express for a tenth of the price.

You can go to memory express then.

- Food at movies, $5.25 for a bucket of $0.10 popcorn, robbery, plus you are not allowed to bring in outside food, what if you are diabetic.

Exceptions will be allowed. Don't go to that theatre, find another,
or don't go at all. Wait for video rental, watch at home. I know people
with extreme peanut allergies that do this.

- Satellite TV. Me catching a signal that is being beamed past my house all the time anyway does not cost the company anything extra, it should be free.

Sure, you can take it. And it is legal. The illegal ones are the ones where
you have to unscramble the signal, and you do it without paying.

- Speeding, if I do not hurt anyone, it is not costing anyone anything, why should I pay a ticket.

A set of rules designed to keep the roads reasonably safe.
Not sure what this has to do with exhorbitant costs though?
Except maybe this city uses it as an additional tax?

- Quizno's, jeezus cripes, 9 dollars for a blah sub!

Don't go to Quizno's. Try your luck at Subway, or go to the aforementioned
grocery stores and pick up the stuff and make it to your liking at home.
Plus the number of other options to getting a sandwich made for you.

I know what you are trying to get at, however, it's the same as
trying to say, "If you don't like the gas prices at the pump, go to
another vendor." What other bank doesn't gouge (excluding ING
and PC Financial, which I use, just because they don't gouge)?
All of the examples you gave allow you to go somewhere else, banks
do not.

ers

[Resolute 14]

Originally Posted by Winsor_Pilates

No kidding. What's next?
Limitations on monopolys, child labour laws, minimum wages, workplace safety standards?
I'm sick of hippies telling big businesses to treat people fairly. We have the right to be ripped off and taken advantage of. You can't take that away from us Layton!!!!

Don't forget taxing us to death, destroying the economy and sending Canada into recession.

[Agamemnon]

I'm pretty sure Fotze was being sarcastic there...

[Slava]

I saw the news article last night that said that in the UK there are no fees for these transactions, and the banks still have healthy profits. Now my opinion is that we are just being taken advantage of...(I know that someone else posted something about this yesterday, but no one seemed certain if it was true).

[RougeUnderoos]

Originally Posted by Ha Ha Stupid Oilers

those guards/service men arent paid and trained like those paladin guys who waltz around getting paid a few bucks more than minimum wage.
They also dont drive in Smart cars either

also not everyone takes out just $100 at once

Those guards aren't getting paid like the heavyweight champion of the world either, and the amount of gas needed to transport the money for the average ABM transaction (60 bucks, I think an above post said) would be measured in microlitres.

Look at the profits the banks rake in. It's pretty clear that those hefty service charges are doing a lot more than just covering the costs of operation. If they can get away with it then good for them, but it's obviously a gouge.

[Hakan]

The costs are faced by the bank anyway in providing the service to their clients. They have to provide ABM access to their clients because of various market pressures. Therefore, they are going to incur the costs of maintaining and policing the ABM's ANYWAY. That's why you get your monthly 'service charge' or whatever from your bank, a portion of it pays for those costs (the other portion is profit).

Now that those costs have already been paid for, now that the machine will already be serviced every day regardless of whether non-clients use it or not, what will the extra cost be of one non-client using the machine? Yup, you guessed it, the marginal cost is zero.

Therefore the fee that they charge you is 100% cream for them. They were already going to incur all the cost anyway.

That's why these fees are wrong, your monthly service fee already more than pays for whatever costs there are to the ABM. The rest is just flat out corporatist greed disguised as some kind of convenience fee. The bank doesn't incur a single bit more cost from a non-client using it then the machien would have otherwise already had.

Up to a limit. If tonnes of non-clients start using the machines then they will have to stock them with more cash meaning that the banks reserves can't be invested elsewhere making money for them. So maybe the fees are there to avoid rapid ABM anarchy of clients using any old machine and robbing the poor old banks of their investment earnings.

Hardly, you will most likely use your banks machine because it has much more services to offer. You can pay bills, transfer money, see balances, deposit items etc. Sure their will be more casual withdrawls of $20 but that really doesn't cost them at all. And in the end, the major banks would not need to have any more cash on hand as before because it's not like removing these fees will cause people to go out and withdraw more cash all of a sudden.

But yes, lets keep sticking up for our right to be gouged. Keep it up!

[JimmytheT]

Originally Posted by Sample00

The government should stay out of banking!
the government should be there to govern and not be involved in business ala ATB. Having a provincial or federally run financial institution changes the playing field. Banks have to follow the guidelines set out by the Federal and Provincial governments, yet the ATB can just make up the rules as they go along.
ie) downpayments on purchasing homes, business loans, service charges etc.
and the real issue I have with it is, is that its our tax dollars at work with them making lending or investment decisions that may not be totally sound business decisions.
the list with ATB seems to be endless.
WEM/ATB thing as previously eluded to and of course we are all familiar with the Pocklington fiasco

Please find me an example of ATB "making the rules up as they go along" after the year 1997. As I said before, ATB now has a board of directors and an independent executive that runs to the standards of any bank listed on the TSX.

[Cowperson]

The government opened ATM competition in 1996.

The large majority of ABM machines accessible in Canada are not owned directly by banks . . . . I think its about 61% to 39% in favour of independent operators.

It appears that less than 10% of ABM's not owned directly by banks are owned by corporations owned by banks.

I saw a CBC story from 2000 indicating one bank machine costs about $2,500 per annum to operate . . . probably higher now.

The average person withdraws between $60 and $80 . . . . . the average consumer advocacy group appears to use $20 in objecting to fees.

Some stats from interac

http://www.interac.org/en_n3_31_abmstats.html

Maybe I'm just more organized than some of you, but its a rare day when I'm paying $1.50 to use an Interac at 7-11 or a gas station. . . . . . I think the statistics also show consumers gravitating more towards debit cards at point of purchase instead of trying to grab cash from a machine in the story to pay for the purchase.

Time for the weekend!!

Cowperson

[Devils'Advocate]

Originally Posted by fotze

- Cheese at Safeway, what a rip easily 40% than superstore.
- Cords and cables at futureshop and big box electronics stores, you can get the same ones at memory express for a tenth of the price.
- Food at movies, $5.25 for a bucket of $0.10 popcorn, robbery, plus you are not allowed to bring in outside food, what if you are diabetic.
- Satellite TV. Me catching a signal that is being beamed past my house all the time anyway does not cost the company anything extra, it should be free.
- Speeding, if I do not hurt anyone, it is not costing anyone anything, why should I pay a ticket.
- Quizno's, jeezus cripes, 9 dollars for a blah sub!

But none of these companies are gathering in huge profits because of government regulation. The government has ALWAYS played with profit margins of companies that have been protected. Even when local phone service was a monopoly, the CRTC would ensure that the local phone company wasn't acessively gouging the customer. If the phone companies had been making the same amount of money as the banks currently are, the government surely would have stepped in. Currently, since banks are an oligopoly and not a monopoly, the government hasn't said anything. But the market isn't correct itself as there is no business reason to lower prices (service fees, interest rates). Everyone is making a killing.

BTW, as someone on the verge of purchasing a house, I 100% fully agree with you about the CMHC fees.

[Bobblehead]

Originally Posted by Hakan

Now that those costs have already been paid for, now that the machine will already be serviced every day regardless of whether non-clients use it or not, what will the extra cost be of one non-client using the machine? Yup, you guessed it, the marginal cost is zero.

Marginal cost will NOT be zero. They will need to refill the machine more frequently, as well as the receipt paper amd increased use = increased maintenance. The costs per unit are small but they are definitely not zero.

Now take a look at the other side of the coin. How much revenue does a bank get from a non-client? Unless they charge a fee, it is zero. Why should they allow other bank's customers to use the machines they set up and maintain, for free?

[Hakan]

Should have said essentially zero. An extra roll of paper every month and incredibly small extra maintenance costs over the life of the machine.

Ok so lets say the marginal cost is 3 cents being generous.

Does that justify a $1.50 charge?

As to your comments about the Bank getting zero revenue from the non-client.

They dont' get cash revenue no, but they do get use and trust in the network that they desperately want to push you to, Interac/Direct.

Remember that the banks receive huge amount of revenue from the use of this network.