Consumers warned about surcharging cash machines

Sainsbury’s Bank, which only has 'free to use' cash machines in its estate, has today warned consumers that they stand to be charged around £16.43 million when using surcharging ATMs this Christmas, an increase of around £1.46 million compared to last year.

The bank, which is committed to a “no charge” policy for its rapidly-expanding estate of cash machines, issued the warning in the wake of a dramatic increase in the number of ATMs that now charge customers for withdrawing their own money. The bank estimates that as many as 10.4 million cash machine withdrawals made in December will incur charges, an increase of almost 10% (9.7%) on 12 months ago.

Although 96% of all transactions are made at free-to-use machines, analysis of industry data by Sainsbury’s Bank reveals that the number of surcharging ATMs increased by 188% between June 2002 and June 2006 and that they now account for around 44% of all available machines.

Alex Blake, head of channels, Sainsbury’s Bank said: “With so many more surcharging cash machines around, we all need to pay greater attention before we start our ATM transactions this Christmas. All machines should now carry an onscreen warning or a sticker but these are sometimes easy to miss especially when dashing around Christmas shopping or heading for a night out.

“We are committed to not charging people for withdrawing their money from our machines, and in the last 12 months we have increased our number of free-to-use ATMs by around 19%, one of the biggest rises of any provider.”

Sainsbury’s Bank now has over 900 free-to-use ATMs all of which are conveniently located and accessible to customers at Sainsbury’s stores, petrol forecourts and convenience stores all over the country.