Government hedges on plan to restrict ATM transactions

A proposal by the Ministry of the Interior to limit the amount that could be transferred via ATMs to non-designated bank accounts came under heavy fire from consumers yesterday, prompting a late about-face last night by the government.

After an outpouring of complaints on the proposed restrictions, Premier Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) last night asked both the Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) and the ministry to study the issue further before trying to implement it.

During a dinner with Democratic Progressive Party lawmakers, Hsieh said the Cabinet hasn't formulated a policy on the issue but is framing possible measures at present, the Central News Agency reported last night, quoting Hsieh.

The initiative is one of the measures aimed at cracking down on fraud, and was slated to be implemented next Wednesday. The authorities said they hoped to do a trial run of the new rule for a month.

"The commission will act in harmony with the Executive Yuan's goal of fighting fraud while trying to impose the least inconvenience on the people," the commission's Vice Chairman Lu Daung-yen (呂東英) said at a press conference yesterday.

Lu said the commission was scheduled to meet with bankers today to formulate possible supplementary measures. However, he dodged the query as to whether the government would enforce a restriction on the daily transfer of NT$10,000 to non-designated bank accounts.

Other possible solutions include making transfers available in non-designated bank accounts the next day, the FSC said.

The proposed limitation exposed discord among government agencies, as FSC Chairman Kong Jaw-sheng (龔照勝) said that he was surprised to learn about the announcement the ministry made on Tuesday.

"It should be the commission's job to announce the policy change," Kong said at the legislature's Finance Committee yesterday.

To lessen the commission's anger, the ministry said yesterday that it hoped the FSC would be the main administrative body responsible for setting a ceiling on the amount of money transferrable via ATM per account holder per day.

Vice Minister of the Interior Lin Yung-chien (林永堅) said that in order to deter individuals with ATM cards from being scammed, the Criminal Investigation Bureau (CIB) had long been devising various measures to combat such schemes. The ministry said that the new measure would not affect the daily life of average individuals.

"Most of the bills that can be paid over ATM transfers, such as telephone and utilities, are usually under NT$10,000. Should anyone intend to make any larger transfers, he can just contact his bank to make a contracted transfer," Lin said.

A figure that the ministry has received, which was probably from last year, Lin added, illustrated that on average, 460,000 ATM transfers took place per day, 60 percent of which were under NT$10,000.

Putting a limit on ATM transfers per day per account holder has long been practiced in the US and the UK and thus the CIB had decided to follow suit.

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Limit on ATM transfers sparks outrage