Is anyone offering to reimburse ATM fees when your customers use other bank's ATMs? If so, what are the procedures? Do you have the customer bring receipts to the bank? I've noticed many of the internet banks and brokerage firms do this. We feel this may help us compete aginst the mega banks. Would appreciate any input. Thanks!

On certain of our deposit accounts we reimburse up to 5 foreign ATM fees for withdrawals per month. I believe our system automatically strips the fee off the transaction, in other words, if a customer withdraws $50 and is charged a $2 fee, only the $50 transaction shows up on the customer's statement. The $2 fee is paid by the bank.

Check with your processor - most can set up a reimbursable system which is automated, usually coded by account type, etc.

I'm just tagging on to this thread even though it is fairly old since this is a question coming up for us. If the bank decided to do this "reimbursement" manually, is there any concern about the fee being considered interest to the customer? Can you limit this to certain locations, etc. or is it better to do it for all branches, customers, etc.? Thanks for your thoughts.

Reimbursement of fees charged is not considered interest. You can do this for any branches or set of customers you want.

I have seen it limited to certain locations, but our bank does all locations which may make it easier for those who process the reimbursements (the tellers in our case.) We do allow a certain number per account though. Unlimited reimbursements for club accounts, 4 for free accounts, etc. We do manual reimbursement which saves a lot of money b/c not everyone participates.

Sure, what I meant was that if you do the program manually instead of automatically, not all customers will request to have the fees rebated. We have been doing this for 10 months and we currently have 40% of all foreign transactions submitted for rebates.

Isn't there something in the regulations that says if you don't charge a fee for one person in a class of accounts you mast waive it for all account in that class? For instances - if you off no foreign fees on product A because its a relationship account you must apply it all personnels who have a relationship account w/ product A - not just those who request it?

No, there is no such regulation requiring uniform charges. It is up to the bank.

Although we do have flexibility in how and when we refund charges, we should be careful that our policies and practices are consistent and do not unfairly impact any protected group or class. We should be able to explain to our regulators exactly how we make our decisions.