Automated teller machines (ATMs) are nothing new, but not all cardholders make full use of all the facilities that ATMs offer. Due to ignorance or technophobia, many clients still opt for more cumbersome and costly methods of banking.
If you hate waiting in long queues at the bank, ATM banking is the way to go. It offers you the convenience of being able to do most of your banking from a machine which is often situated outside your bank, so that you have access to your bank account 24 hours a day.
ATM banking is also considerably cheaper than other methods of payment, such as issuing cheques or doing transactions over the counter inside the bank. With ever-increasing bank charges eroding your cash, you have to be mindful of these costs.
The one drawback of ATM banking is that it has become the target of thieves, whose most popular modus operandi is to distract you, watch you punch in your personal identification number (PIN), which they memorise, and then surreptitiously swop your card for a dud or a stolen card. The thieves make off with your card and with your PIN memorised, they draw money from your account.
The key, therefore, is to take special care when doing transactions at an ATM.
Most banks have a daily withdrawal limit of R1 000 on their ATM cards, but this amount can be increased or decreased by you. It is preferable to keep this limit as low as possible because if criminals obtain your card and PIN they will be limited to draw this sum of money. By lowering your limit you are reducing your risk should your card be lost or stolen. But criminals can also draw an electronic cheque to the value or whatever balance you have in your account or up to your maximum withdrawal limit. Furthermore, criminals can shop at certain stores with your ATM card, so it is vital that if it is lost or stolen, you report it to your bank immediately. Also remember that if your card is legitimately retained by an ATM, the machine will issue you with a slip. If you are not issued with a slip, cancel your card immediately.
Some people feel intimated to use an ATM and are afraid to press the wrong button, but once you become familiar with the use of an ATM, it makes banking more convenient.
How to bank at an ATM
You get access to an ATM by means of a card which is issued to you when you open a bank account such as a cheque account or a savings account. Usually you are then allocated a PIN by the bank, but some banks allow you to choose your own PIN.
You may link all your accounts - cheque, savings, credit card, bond and money market accounts - to one card. You can even link the cards of family members, such as your children, so that you can pay their pocket money electronically into their accounts.
You can also pay your monthly bills using an ATM, but you have to first go into your bank and arrange for the service provider or individual you want to pay, to be set up as a beneficiary. To do so, you will need the bank account details of the individual or service provider. Once the accounts have been linked by your bank, you can pay them at an ATM when it is convenient for you.
Remember that it may take a few days for payments to register on the account of the person or service provider that you have paid, so if accounts are due on a specific date, you need to do these transactions two to three days before to avoid paying interest on money you owe.
What you can do at an ATM
ATMs were the first electronic banking service to be introduced to consumers. Other forms of electronic banking are telephone and cellular phone banking and internet banking.
There is a wide range of transactions that you can do at an ATM, including:
- Draw cash from your account;
- Transfer money between your accounts, for instance, between your current account and your credit card account, in order to pay your credit card account;
- Pay any of your normal monthly bills, such as municipal, telephone or clothing accounts;
- Make other payments, such as your children's pocket money or your domestic worker's salary, provided the recipients have bank accounts;
- Print balances or statements on your accounts; and
- Deposit cash or cheques into any of your accounts.
Costs
Apart from the monthly service fees which you are charged on your bank accounts, you are also charged a fee for every transaction you make and that includes transactions done at an ATM. But it is a lot cheaper to bank at an ATM than it is to do your banking at a teller inside the bank. This is the banks' way of encouraging consumers to use ATMs.
Fees vary between banks and according to the type of transaction. For cash withdrawals and cash deposits, the fees depend on the amount involved in the transaction, while there tend to be set fees for account payments and money transfers, irrespective of the amount involved. Mini statements and balance inquiries are generally free if you use your bank's own ATM network (it doesn't have to be the ATM outside your specific branch), but a fee is charged for these transactions at the ATMs of other banks because your bank will have to pay the other bank because you used the other bank's ATM.
You can also expect to pay for a replacement ATM card should you lose your card or if it is stolen.
- Information obtained from banks as well as from the book Do You Know Your Bank? by Dirk de Villiers (Metz Press).