Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 3 October 2023
254. Deputy Ged Nash asked the Minister for Finance when the Central Bank plans to introduce a regulatory regime to govern the independent operators of ATMs, as recommended by the Retail Banking Review; if his Department has raised this issue with the Central Bank in 2023; if he is concerned at reports that the operators may consider introducing charges on transactions prior to any new regulatory framework; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [42495/23]
View answerAs the Deputy is aware, the Retail Banking Review, published by my Department in November 2022, concluded that cash, despite a decline in its usage, remains an important element of the payments system and the broader economy and it is essential that cash remains readily available to customers through ATMs and other means across the country. It also concluded that there was still reasonable access to cash at the moment but noted that neither the Minister for Finance, nor the Central Bank, had any powers to ensure this.
Accordingly, the Review recommended that the Department of Finance should develop Access to Cash legislation and prepare heads of a bill in 2023 with the initial objective of developing criteria that would secure access to cash at about the levels prevailing in December 2022 but also provide for such criteria to be amended appropriately in future as and when cash usage declines further. The key objective is to ensure that evolution of the access to cash infrastructure does not move ahead of society's needs and expectations and that the future evolution is handled in a fair, transparent, and equitable manner.
The Review also called on Department officials to prepare heads of a bill in 2023 to require ATM operators to be authorised and supervised by the Central Bank and to provide the Central Bank with responsibility and powers to protect the resilience of the cash system, including the authorisation and supervision of cash-in-transit firms in respect of their cash handling activities and related financial services. It is my intention to fully honour this commitment and this work is now well underway by officials in my Department. It is intended that one piece of legislation will be drafted for all three recommendations on access to cash, including the aspects on IADs.
As part of the process of developing this important piece of legislation, my officials have consulted with the Central Bank of Ireland in relation to a number of relevant issues, as well as conducted a targeted consultation of stakeholders.
In relation to charges on transactions, I presume that the Deputy is referring to access fees charged by an ATM operator to use a specific ATM, which are separate to any bank charges incurred by a customer under the fee arrangements applying to their bank account. The Retail Banking Review discussed this issue and noted that it is important to ensure that the costs of accessing cash services - withdrawals and deposits - are not used to incentivise customers and SMEs to move away from cash. The Review Team said that it considers, as a matter of policy, that Irish consumers should not be charged access fees for withdrawing their own cash via a domestic ATM. This issue is also being considered in the Access to Cash legislation.
My officials are already working on Heads of Bill for this important piece of legislation and will bring the Heads to Government before the end of this year to seek approval to draft the Bill and to submit it for pre-legislative scrutiny to the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform and the Taoiseach.
