STRATEGIC PARTNERS
January 31, 2002
SYDNEY -- Managing director David Murray of the Commonwealth Bank of Australia entered the increasingly heated debate over electronic banking fees in that country, telling Asia Pulse that more than two thirds of his bank's customers did not pay transaction fees for using its ATMs.
Murray said that a parliamentary committee which reported on electronic banking targeted individual issues without taking into account related effects.
According to the committee, which is concerned about the cost of conducting transactions at ATMs, fees to non-bank customers average $1.35 Australian (72 cents in U.S. dollars.)
Banks have three months to respond to the recently-released report.Murray said the CBA Bank still had "a way to go read and understand everything in the report."
He contends that some customers might be negatively impacted if the bank adopts some of the committee's suggestions regarding fee structures.
"If you do things one way, then another group of customers will be charged," Murray told Asia Pulse. "Maybe it will cost more to conduct business in rural areas than in urban areas if we take up some of the suggestions. Nothing can be done without a cost and the notion of saying simply program the machines, or simply do this or simply do that has both costs and knock-on effects."
Murray said that more than two thirds of his bank's personal customers pay no fees on their transaction accounts and that domestic retail transaction fees make up less than 4 percent of the bank's total operating income.
The bank recently announced a net profit of $1.135 billion Australian ($608.59 million U.S.) for the half year to Dec. 31, up from $840 million Australian ($450.41 million U.S.) in the previous corresponding period.
