ATM fees in Canada and the Greedy Canadian Banks

On February 3, 2014, the New Democratic Party of Canada brought in a motion before the Canadian Parliament to institute a law to limit the amount that Canadian banks can charge for Automated Teller Machine banking transactions.  They want to institute a 50 cent cap on every ATM transaction. 

No doubt this motion will go nowhere as the ruling political party in Canada is the Conservative Party who are the sad sack, wallflower sisters of the Republican Party in the United States.  Canadian Conservatives do not stand up for the working class nor for the middle class. 

But they will bust their humps to support corporate big business including Canada's banks. 

Canadians can pay almost $6.00 to do an ATM transaction if they do not have an account with the bank that is hosting the banking machine. 

Tom Mulcair, NDP Leader
in Canada

Every time that the bloggers who author the "Sanctuary of Mary" blog, go to our local ATM's, we pay $4.00 per transaction.  Our banking institution, a Credit Union does not have a banking machine in our area. Therefore we use the ATM of another bank that does maintain a machine in our area. 

The bank that owns the banking machine charges $2.00 per transaction, which seems somewhat justified in the sense that they are buying the ATM machine, maintaining it, and hiring armoured trucks and armed guards to stock these machines with cash. However, it has been reported that the money spent by banks hosting ATM's is only 36 cents per transaction, including maintaining the machine, the hiring of the armoured vehicles and the guards and all.  

And then....wait for it.... Our credit union charges an additional $2.00 per transaction to release our own money to us (as a "processing fee").   So, taking out $100. from an ATM machine can cost you $4.00.  

When this entire ATM scenario first came out decades ago, everyone was pleased

Hi there.  I'm a Canadian Banking Executive.
Can I (burp...) help you with your financial needs? 

because it made accessing your own money easier.  No need to drive to, bus it, or walk to your bank.  However, banks don't do anything that isn't profitable for them. ATM's eliminated many local area banks.  They simply closed the doors and sold off their properties.  They also cut down hugely on staff. 

Banks in Canada make outrageous profits. As a group, the Big 5 Canadian banks - Royal Bank, Toronto-Dominion, Bank of Montreal, ScotiaBank and Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, earned almost $30 billion in profit in 2013.  Profit is money after expenses.  And this doesn't include the thousands of Credit Unions and other banking institutions in Canada also making huge profits. 

The ironic side is that many of these banking institutions were closing branches and laying off staff in record numbers in 2013.  This will give them still more profit. 

Kudos to the New Democratic Party of Canada for standing up for the "99 percent" who are the real people of this country. 

God save us from the thieves dressed in suits in the corporate board rooms of Banks in Canada.  Their greed is overwhelming.  Amen.