Are You Being Charged to Use Your ATM Card?

Kareem Michael

But there is one fee that the Central Bank of Belize has not been able to restrict. That fee is charged by a retailer or wholesaler to a customer who chooses to use his or her ATM card. The bank itself does not charge to use the ATM card but the seller does and consumers have been complaining for a long time about it. Today, Governor Kareem Michael explained that conversations on how to address that continue.

Kareem Michael, Governor, Central Bank of Belize

“We’ve had internal discussions and we’ve sort of continued the dialogue with the commercial banks on this. What those discussions have centered around is that where does, who does, who will have a jurisdiction over correcting this practice? And I think the angle was to see if there was any room for it in the Financial Consumer Protection Bill that’s coming along, the act, but It doesn’t seem to fit there at all. That would be very, a very different structure. Now, if the commercial banks and the retailers are the ones who enter into this contract, then shouldn’t that control authority rest between the two? It might be better fit there. And that’s where we’re still continuing the dialogue. I encourage anybody in the public who has this experience to definitely go to our website and send us some information, evidence that this has occurred to you.”