The Minister for Finance, Jack Chambers T.D., today welcomes the publication of the Finance (Provision of Access to Cash Infrastructure) Bill 2024. The Bill aims to ensure that sufficient and effective access to cash is available in the State, and that any further evolution of the cash infrastructure will be managed in a fair, orderly, transparent and equitable manner for all stakeholders.
Minister Chambers commented:
“For many people, cash remains the preferred form of payment and cash continues to play an important role in our economy.
Cash is important to consumers in all walks of life because it is a private, secure, and instant form of payment. It is a budgeting tool for many, and it allows individuals to maintain their financial independence. It is also important for the day-to-day revenue and expenses of so many of our small-to-medium enterprises (SMEs).
It is imperative to ensure that cash remains widely available and accessible, protect the economy when technology is not a viable option, and ensure that those who rely on cash can do so into the future. That is why the Finance (Provision of Access to Cash Infrastructure) Bill 2024 aims to put in place a framework to ensure continued sufficient and effective access to cash in the State.”
The Bill stems from a recommendation made by the Retail Banking Review, published in November 2022, highlighting the continuing importance of cash in ensuring people do not experience financial exclusion, in allowing consumers to budget efficiently, and the need for a safety net in the event of electronic banking, or the payments infrastructure, being impacted by outages or cyber-attacks.
The Review also called on Department officials to require ATM operators to be authorised and supervised by the Central Bank and to provide the Central Bank with responsibility and powers to protect the resilience of the cash system.
The Bill published today incorporates both of these elements in one piece of legislation, and establishes that access to cash will be maintained, initially, at approximately December 2022 levels. It places an obligation on designated entities, the three main retail banks in the first instance, to ensure in each of the NUTS 3 regions that:
- a specified percentage of the population must be within no less than 5km and no more than 10km of an ATM;
- there is a specified number of ATMs per 100,000 people;
- a specified percentage of the population must be within no less than 5km and no more than 10km of a cash service point – either a bank branch or a post office.
The Bill also provides for the rectification of local deficiencies – locations where particular difficulties arise in accessing cash. Furthermore, the Bill allows the Minister for Finance, following consultation with the Central Bank of Ireland, to make regulations that prohibit or cap the maximum access fee that can be charged if access fees are introduced in the future because they become a barrier to cash access and decrease financial inclusion.
Reviews of the access to cash criteria will be carried out following the publication of final Census population data, if cash demand drops by 15% in a calendar year compared to the previous year, or at the request of the Minister for Finance. A review may also be carried out on the Central Bank’s own initiative.
The Bill also provides for the registration and supervision by the Central Bank of ATM deployers and cash-in-transit providers. This will permit the Central Bank to make regulations introducing service standards for all ATM operators in relation to matters such as hours of operation, operational resilience and bank note denomination stocking.
The drafting of this important legislation has been a priority, and the Minister for Finance gratefully acknowledges the efforts of the Office of Parliamentary Counsel to the Government in ensuring the timely publication of the Bill.
