Max has a point about bank "disloyalty" fees, and I didn't mean to imply that the usage of ATMs wasn't dropping to some extent, because it is. But I think that the banks have it wrong - the usage of ATMs has dropped away because of the proliferation of EFT-POS, which stands for "electronic funds transfer - point of sale".
Like Bridget96, we have an arrangement with our bank which means that we pay a total of $20 per month in card-related fees for DD cards, including ATM withdrawals/deposits. While this doesn't obviate fees by other banks, I don't generally find this onerous because my bank hs so many ATMs that I rarely go to any other bank's machines. We also negotiated a deal to void fees on ATM transactions with another major bank on the basis that we have a mortgage with them, and did they REALLY want to keep our business? This probably covers at least 50% of the machines in NZ.
One of the blessings of ATMs is that I can use my direct debit card anywhere in the world that has ATMs. And given the relative lack of value of the NZ dollar anywhere but here, it's also one of the curses ...
One of the interesting issues that has arisen as a result of NZ's wholehearted embrace of cashlessness is that it is extremely difficult to get any business at all to accept a cheque. I used to write dozens of the damned things in a month, and now we pay precisely one (1) - count 'em - cheque a month on a regular basis, plus pay the odd tradesman (and most of them are odd).
