KUALA LUMPUR – The Finance Ministry has been urged to intervene immediately and instruct banks to cancel the revival of the RM1 fee for interbank ATM withdrawals under the Malaysian Electronic Payment System.
Pakatan Harapan (PH) secretary-general Datuk Seri Saifuddin Nasution Ismail in a statement today said the RM1 fee puts pressure on those in rural and remote areas, where there are not many ATMs around.
“The people’s situation is different now. On November 2, the government announced that 600,000 households from the M40 group had fallen into the B40 group as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic.
“As of October this year, an estimated 13.9% of youth between the ages of 15 and 24 were unemployed, while there were 705,000 unemployed individuals (in total).
“If we were to take into consideration the surge in the price of goods, which has not been controlled yet, it is evident that the people are now having a hard time,” he said.
Saifuddin – who is also Kulim Bandar Baru MP – said the banking sector is among those reporting healthy profits, despite the pandemic and the movement control orders (MCOs) implemented.
Hence, he is of the view that there are ways to ensure banks can cover the ATM transaction costs.
“For instance, Malayan Banking Bhd (Maybank) reported a net profit of RM1.96 billion for the second quarter of this year, almost RM1 billion higher than the previous year.
“CIMB (Bank Bhd) saw an increase of RM1.84 billion to RM2.62 billion (in the second quarter) in net profit, compared to RM785 million (in the same period last year). This means most, if not all, commercial banks saw healthy profits this year.
“We are also aware that banks often place various charges on almost all other transactions,” he said.
He added that Finance Minister Datuk Seri Tengku Zafrul Tengku Abdul Aziz should know about ways to ensure banks can cover ATM transaction costs, as the latter was previously senior official of a commercial bank.
PH leaders will continue to study the development of the issue, and are ready to hold meetings with the government and bank representatives in order to convey concerns of the people.
In April last year, then senior defence minister Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob – who is now prime minister – had announced that all banks in Malaysia would temporarily waive the fee imposed on withdrawals at ATMs not under the account holder’s bank until the end of the MCO period.
Checks by The Vibes found banks that will be reimposing the fees include Maybank, CIMB Bank/CIMB Islamic Bank, Hong Leong Bank, AmBank, and Public Bank.
Bank Islam, HSBC Bank, Citibank, and Kuwait Finance House are among the other banks involved.
According to announcements made on the banks’ social media accounts, the fee will be reimposed effective February 1.
It is understood that customers making withdrawals from the ATMs of their respective banks would not be charged any withdrawal fees. – The Vibes, December 15, 2021
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