NACS, Others Press Congress to Eliminate ATM Fee Disclosures

ALEXANDRIA, Va. -- NACS is among a group of organizations that have written a joint letter to two congressional committees asking for ATM disclosure regulations to be eliminated.

According to Credit Union Times, NACS, along with the American Gaming Association, the ATM Industry Association, the Electronic Funds Transfer Association and others have sent a letter to the House Committee on Financial Services and the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, urging both to vanquish a law that requires an ATM deployer to post a disclosure of transaction fees on both the video monitor and the body of the machine.

Although the law might not seem cumbersome to some, the letter states that the requirement has spawned several lawsuits from people who have removed the posted notices, photographed the ATM without them and subsequently sued, the news outlet reported.

Penalties paid by convenience stores and others for violation of the law have not been considered devastating, but the nuisance of defending a lawsuit is, the organizations said.

"A physical placard fee notice may have played a useful role when Congress first enacted the statutory provision in the 1990s," the letter states. "At that time, off-premise ATMs were relatively uncommon, and some consumers might have been unaware that they may be charged a fee for using an ATM. Also, many ATMs were not capable of providing the notice on the monitor."

The organizations noted in the letter that consumers now readily expect to pay fees when making transactions at off-site ATMs.

"Today, consumers expect to pay a fee at an ATM unless they are using an ATM owned or operated by the bank or credit union where they have their account or their financial institution has agreed to pay for the use of the ATM," the letter concluded.