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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. As part of this, the PSR is
monitoring developments within ATM provision.</p><p>The PSR has undertaken work to
understand the impact on the provision of free-to-use ATMs that a reduction in interchange
fees may have and a summary of the findings can be found on their website. The Government
has therefore not conducted its own assessment on the level of coverage of free-to-use
ATMs across the UK.</p><p> </p><p>The PSR 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.</p><p>Indeed, to ensure
the provision of ATMs in rural, isolated or vulnerable areas, LINK announced it will
enhance its financial inclusion plan to include in the programme all ATMs that are
a kilometre or further from the next other free-to-use ATM.</p><p>Additionally, LINK
has recently decided to cancel its third interchange fee reduction, due in January
2020, and put on hold its fourth reduction, due in January 2021, pending a further
review next year. The PSR has welcomed these adjustments to future interchange rates,
having stated that LINK must carefully review its decisions on interchange fees to
reflect changing market conditions.</p><p> </p><p>The PSR has committed to using its
powers to act should LINK behave in a way that conflicts with its statutory objectives.</p>
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