Final Word from Thursday, August 11, 2005
Czech banks are coming under scrutiny for their fees. Attention has been paid mainly to the account-closing fees and the double-dipping on certain transactions, but as the banks raise their counter fees, their ATM practices also attract more attention. In Prague, most automatic-teller machines are set to dispense the fewest number of bills necessary, starting with Kč 2,000 notes. If you want Kč 2,100, you get two bills. This allows the ATM operators to decrease their handling costs and transfer the expense of "breaking" the Kč 2,000 note on to customers and retailers. These aren't insignificant costs in a city where the average take-home pay is about Kč 15,000 per month and routine cash transactions are relatively small. Even notes of Kč 1,000 can be hard to break. We vote for nipping this ATM inflation in the bud by setting the Kč 500 note as the standard for all money-machine withdrawals.[Czech Republic bankomat banknotes]