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<p>The Government recognises that widespread free access to cash remains extremely
important to the day-to-day lives of many consumers and businesses in the UK. Government
has been engaging and will continue to engage with the regulators and industry, including
LINK, to ensure that it is maintained.</p><p>The Government established the Payment
Systems Regulator (PSR) in 2015 with a statutory objective to ensure that the UK’s
payment systems work in the interests of their users.</p><p>As part of this, the PSR
is monitoring developments within ATM provision. The PSR recently commissioned work
to understand the impact on the provision of free-to-use ATMs that a reduction in
interchange fees may have. They have also set out three requirements of LINK: that
LINK must maintain the current geographical spread of ATMs; that any changes made
to interchange fees must be incremental to allow LINK to monitor the impact and take
action if the impact is not as expected; and for a greater focus on LINK’s financial
inclusion programme, to continue to fill gaps in the network. The PSR has committed
to using its powers to act should LINK behave in a way that conflicts with its statutory
objectives. The PSR has recently published a summary of their work to date, which
can be found on their website.</p><p>Following the publication of these three criteria,
LINK committed to maintaining an extensive network of free-to-use cash machines, and
to ensuring that the present geographical spread of ATMs is maintained. To do this,
LINK will bolster its Financial Inclusion Programme, which ensures the provision of
ATMs in certain areas where demand would not otherwise make one viable. LINK will
also protect all free-to-use ATMs which are a kilometre or more from the next nearest
free-to-use ATM, and ensure that any community that loses ATM access because of a
branch closure has a free ATM provided.</p><p>Furthermore, LINK will do an annual
review the impact of the interchange fee reduction as it is phased in over the next
four years. In addition, LINK will set up publicly available monitoring on its website
of every area of the country showing free ATM availability, and highlight any areas
where free ATM availability is lost.</p>
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