Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that everyone has access to free-to-use ATMs.

The Government believes that widespread access to cash remains extremely important to the day-to-day lives of many consumers and businesses. That is why the Government continues to engage with the regulators and industry in this area.

In 2015, the Government established the Payment Systems Regulator (PSR), with a statutory objective to ensure that the UK’s payment systems work in the interests of their users. As a result, the PSR is closely monitoring developments within ATM provision, and has used its powers to ensure LINK meets its commitment on maintaining the broad geographical spread of free-to-use ATMs.

The Treasury has not made an estimate of the number of free-to-use ATMS that have been converted to pay-to-use in each of the last five years. Detailed statistical data on the number of free-to-use and pay-to-use ATMs since 1998 is publicly available on the LINK website.