NEW YORK -- New York State Attorney General Elliot Spitzer said a Citigroup Inc. unit has agreed to install 149 no-surcharge ATMs in low-income New York City neighborhoods as part of a settlement designed to make it easier for welfare recipients to get their cash benefits, according to BridgeNews.
Spitzer said the agreement would help about 167,000 families who get benefits through the federal Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) program by making ATMs more convenient and free to use. In recent years, Citibank became one of the last major U.S. financial institutions to add a convenience fee at its ATMs.
"This agreement is a major step toward ensuring an equitable system for distributing cash benefits to the poor," Spitzer said during a, April 10 press conference. "New Yorkers whose lives depend on these funds should never have to pay surcharges to receive their benefits and they should have access to their benefits in their own communities."
Spitzer's office launched a probe into Citigroup's Citicorp Electronic Financial Services Inc., a Chicago-based unit that has operated the TANF program in New York since 1996 by contract from New York State.
Several years ago federal agencies turned to banks to migrate paper and coupon-based systems toward electronic benefits systems, using an ATM-like card, in an effort to reduce costs and fraud.
