[size=55:17sv1d4p]Focus 03 October 2010

Higher fees on ATM withdrawals due to increasing investments

The fact that fees for ATM device withdrawals have been rising lately is the main reason why some oppose the idea of salaries being paid through banks only, the 24 Chasa informs. Currently bank clients are being charged BGN 0 – BGN 0.30 for cash withdrawals from devices that belong to the bank - issuer of the card and BGN 0.55 – BGN 1 for withdrawals from devices belonging to other financial institutions. The excuse banks present for increasing fees on debit cards are higher investments they make in order to extend their ATM device network and introduce new technologies that would make devices and cards more secure.
“Banks made huge investments in order to introduce the card chip. This is a much more secure, but also more expensive technology,” Svetlana Maerkova, head of “Card Products, Analysis and Risk” at EIBank said.
“Some banks invest in installing more devices in order to offer a more secure service and improve quality,” Postbank officials explained.
“We are constantly trying to improve the quality of the service, we see that ATM devices work non-stop, we make a monitoring that strengthens security and this is where higher expenses come from,” representatives of Piraeus Bank noted.
In general, fees are determined on a market principle, Pencho Savov, head of the “Bank Cards and e-Banking” department at DSK Bank explained.

I think that spending money on the ATM's in Bulgaria can only be a good thing so long as it makes them more secure I have had a bad experience in Bulgaria with the Bulbank ATM's