By Jodeal Cadacio
Reporter
AN opposition lawmaker on Wednesday urged the House Committee on Banks and Financial Intermediaries to investigate in aid of legislation the imposition of service fees in cross-bank automated teller machine transactions, citing numerous complaints from depositors.
House Deputy Minority Leader Joel Villanueva of the Citizens’ Battle Against Corruption said the panel, chaired by Lakas Rep. Jaime Lopez of Manila, should look into the reasonableness of the fees being charged by banks.
Villanueva said his office was swamped by complaints regarding what the public perceived as “unreasonable fees” charged every time they use ATMs to make withdrawals or even balance inquiries.
“Some banks charge P5 [per transaction], others P12 for every withdrawal. Some even charge P2 for a mere balance inquiry,” an indignant Villanueva said.
“We want to be able to determine if these charges are reasonable, considering all the other charges imposed on each depositor when maintaining a bank account.”
Villanueva’s call for a probe is embodied in House Resolution 1324, in which he noted that in 2003 alone, some P24 billion was generated by banks from fee-based transactions that include ATM service fees.
The amount represented an 11-percent increase from the 2002 level of almost P22 billion based on official documents from the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas. There are more than 16 million ATM cardholders who transact business with some 6,285 machines all over the country.
“If we want to help ordinary Filipinos improve their lives, we have to find ways to encourage them to get involved in small- and medium-scale business and transact with banks. But they are being discouraged because of these unexplained and unreasonable fees,” Villanueva said.
He said the policy of imposing service fees has become a burden for depositors. “With many of our people struggling economically, it is unfair that banks would even use the ATMs as a lucrative revenue-generating scheme,” Villanueva said.
No comments:
Post a Comment