As a Credit Union member...

I've been working on a spreadsheet to clearly lay out the circumstances with regards to ATM fees. I feel, now that I'm entirely switched over to my credit union (Meridian), that I have some high ground on the big banks that I can condemn the profits they make. Yes, I do condemn profits particularly when they occur using interest as a means of generating excess, rather than to cover costs and overhead. Maybe I'm wrong on this, or am looking at this the wrong way, but as I see it "competitiveness" has placed a new cost associated with business: profit. Unrelated to markets or no markets, the presuit of profits have left us with a sorrowful prosperity gap. I want to illustrate how little of a difference this will make for big banks in Canada, and how that difference changes in relevance for low-income Canadians.

That is to say that this will merely cost on average 2% of the big banks annual profit to cut ATM fees. This is profit, that is is above and beyond their operating costs. This means that they will be %2.2 less desirable than competitors (if their competitors have not yet already cut ATM fees already). However, I don't want to have to justify this as though we need a moral arguemnt to cut into the profit margins of undemocratic economic institutions in order to serivce the genuine needs of the gerenal population. We should do this as a matter of principle. In other words, if for some reason some banks were to become less profitable in the future, and this fee elimination hypothetically had any significant consequence to their profitability, it would still remain our moral obligation to serve the needs of the people. It almost seems insane that I would have to explain that in this day and age.

For the average income earner, perhaps they use the bank machine twice a week, lets say that one of those times, they take out $20 and the other time they take out $40.

the total amount withdrawn per year from the bank would be $3120. Assuming the bank cost was $2, you could say that the yearly cost of the ATM fees would be $208. This constitutes %6 of our hypothetical bank withdrawls. For reference sake, I personally spend ~$25 on food for a week (it means two months of food). Needless to say this hypothetical situation is not likely to be common, but is certainly reasonable as a possibility. Some circumstances would be worse, some better (certainly those with children might change the dynamics a great deal). Ultimately, when most people in Canada work for a living (not a profit), and when a large number of Canadians live under the poverty line, these fees represent a cut of their "operating expenses".

As a general plug, I might remind folks that there are alternatives to big banks, and if you, as I do, seek a world of "people over profit" I suggest you consider a Credit Union. For many accessability of ATMs and such conveniniences is an issue. In Ontario the CUs are netowrked such that their ATMs don't charge a fee for one another. An ATM fee elimination would vastly improve the service for CUs, as you could withdraw cash from any ATM in the country. Think about it.