£140 Million To Access Your Own Money

UK£140 million. That's the cost to UK consumers for the privilege of accessing their own money via ATMs, as determined by a Treasury Select Committee.

The Select Committee report cleverly surmises that the banking malpractice of charging between £1.25 and £1.75 for each transaction means that people on low incomes suffer the most financially, and that the UK is fast approaching the point where many communities will no longer have access to ATM services free of charge.

A month after HSBC announced £9.6bn ($17.6bn) profits for 2004, and as UK debt tops UK£1 trillion, this latest report has sparked MPs into action to protect the interests of UK bank customers via the enforcement of a new banking regulation:

"signs which warn users of fee-charging ATMs must be made larger and easier to see."

Nice effort, boys.