National Australia Bank emerged as a discounter in the automatic teller machine segment on the first day of the operation of the "convenience fee" regime in Australia yesterday.
National Australia Bank charged customers $1.50 for a cash withdrawal and 50 cents for a balance enquiry. NAB customers will, however, still pay a "foreign" ATM fee that will be 50 cents.
There are also suggestions that Bendigo and Adelaide Bank plans to be a discounter, though not yet. The blogger at
ATM Fee Tracker reported that Bendigo intends to charge other banks' customers a fee of $1.50 for a cash withdrawal, though as of today the fee is $2. The bank will also charge its own customers a foreign bank ATM fee of 10 cents according to an updated schedule of fees published at the bank's website yesterday.
The common price point for using the wrong bank's ATM appears to be $2, in line with the common fee for "foreign" ATM transactions at most banks under the pricing regime that applied until Monday.
NAB attracted some media ire two months ago after it advised customers of plans to continue to charge its own customers a foreign ATM fee of 50 cents. Westpac is also charging a fee of 25 cents, which may apply even to customers using a St George ATM (Westpac's information to its customers is ambiguous on this point, and some reports yesterday suggest the fee applies). St George customers, however, won't pay an extra fee, and this was a condition of the Treasurer's approval of the Westpac takeover of the bank.
ANZ was going to charge a foreign ATM fee but changed its mind. Commonwealth Bank also isn't charging a foreign ATM fee.
BankWest, a subsidiary of CBA, will charge a foreign ATM fee of 50 cents (though BankWest and CBA customers will be able to use the machines of each bank without paying any extra fees). CBA told the
Herald Sun that BankWest had its own pricing and terms and CBA had no involvement with its pricing decisions.