Yet, large banks continue to gain market share, in part because they control the ATM infrastructure and are using it to unfairly disadvantage their smaller, lower cost rivals. No one disputes the fact that banks that deploy ATMs have every right to recover their costs and earn a profit on their investment. ATM owners, however, are already compensated through another fee, known as the interchange fee. This fee is paid by a customer's bank whenever he or she uses an ATM owned or operated by another financial institution. Interchange fees for withdrawals are typically around 50-60 cents.
Surcharges are a second, and unnecessary, fee for the same transaction.
Without fair and equitable access to the infrastructure of electronic banking, small financial institutions will have an increasingly difficult time surviving. In order to maintain a competitive market for banking services, the ATM infrastructure ought to be governed by the same rules that currently apply to other types of common carriers. In industries such as electric power or long distance telephone service, where one competitor often owns the transmission infrastructure that other companies must access in order to compete, lawmakers have mandated fair access. The company that owns the infrastructure must charge its competitors' customers the same rate for access as it charges its own customers. Such a scenario would distort competition and MCI would undoubtedly lose market share.