As counterfeit money spreads widely in the market, some banks have decided to charge as much as a one-percent service fee for exchanging NT$100 dollar bills, offsetting the cost of counterfeit detection equipment to weed out fake bills.
Some of the banks -- include the Chinatrust Commercial Bank (中國信託銀行), the Farmers Bank of China (農民銀行) and the Fubon Commercial Bank (富邦銀行) -- intend to charge NT$100 for exchanging a total amount of NT$10,000 into one hundred NT$100 bills, for instance.
The matter was brought into the limelight by Premier Chang Chun-hsiung (張俊雄) at yesterday's weekly Cabinet meeting, where he instructed government officials to study the appropriateness of the banks' new service fees.
Following Cabinet discussions, government spokesman Su Tzen-ping (蘇正平) said the Ministry of Finance had asked officials at the Bureau of Monetary Affairs to communicate with bank executives to gain more understanding of the new policies, quoting Minister of Finance Yen Ching-chang (顏慶章).
Su, however, said that officials at the central bank believe that no charges should be made to bank clients' exchanging New Taiwan dollar bills.
While banks imposed the surcharge because transaction costs were on the rise due to fake cash, "NT bills are our country's statutory currency. And banks, upon their public duties, should provide the services without any charge," Su said.
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