Statement by the Electronic Funds Transfer Association on Passage of Senate Bill 3394

Bill to Simplify ATM Fee Disclosure Requirements Heads to White House for President’s Signature

FAIRFAX, Va.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The following statement is for attribution by Kurt Helwig, President and CEO of the Electronic Funds Transfer Association. His comments are in response to Tuesday’s passage of Senate Bill 3394:

“Today’s passage of Senate Bill 3394 marks a successful bi-partisan effort to comply with President Obama’s initiative to review outdated, unnecessary and duplicative regulations that are holding back the American economy and hurting competitiveness.”

“Today’s passage of Senate Bill 3394 marks a successful bi-partisan effort to comply with President Obama’s initiative to review outdated, unnecessary and duplicative regulations that are holding back the American economy and hurting competitiveness.

“S. 3394 will finally eliminate an outdated requirement for duplicative signage on ATMs notifying consumers of any fees charged to use that particular machine. Since the advent of technology allowing fee notification to be posted on the ATM screen, the requirement for a tamper-prone notification sticker on the machine itself has been outdated.

“Further, this requirement has been subverted in some cases by individuals who have tampered with the signage in order to accuse the ATM owner of non-compliance with the law. This has resulted in thousands of dollars in costly legal settlements and caused harm to the owners of those tampered ATMs. Many of these victimized ATM owners are small, local businesses. S. 3394 eliminates this opportunity to tamper with these machines.

“Passage of S. 3394 marks the end of a successful 18-month campaign by the Electronic Funds Transfer Association and its partner, the ATM Industry Association, to eliminate this tamper-prone signage requirement. Along with our coalition partners, which included among others, the Credit Union National Association, the Independent Community Bankers Association, and the American Bankers Association, EFTA and ATMIA worked closely with Congress to restore fairness to the fee-notification requirement.

“EFTA, along with its coalition partners, worked with the House Financial Services Committee to bring the issue to the attention of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. We also worked with a leading consumer advocate group in Washington, briefing them on our position and explaining the necessity of restoring fairness to the notification process by streamlining this duplicative regulation.

“We look forward to the law’s implementation following President Obama’s signature.”

About the Electronic Funds Transfer Association

The Electronic Funds Transfer Association is an inter-industry professional association based in Fairfax, Virginia. It is the nation’s leading inter-industry group promoting the adoption of electronic payment systems and commerce.