Summary: The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act of 1999 required GAO to explore the feasibility of providing real-time disclosure of fees charged to automated teller machine (ATM) cardholders during electronic fund transfers conducted at ATMs. Cardholders may be charged both a surcharge and a "foreign" ATM fee when they use an ATM that is not owned by the financial institution that issued the card. Although technically feasible, real-time foreign ATM fee disclosure would require extensive restructuring by all major participants in the ATM industry. Hardware and software would have to be revised and upgraded, and functions, such as message processing and calculation of ATM fees, would have to be modified. Most industry representatives could not offer precise estimates of the costs or the time frames associated with such changes, but estimates for software and hardware changes alone ranged from $5 million for a large third-party processor to tens of millions of dollars for large banks, with estimates from two to three years for implementation. The potential consequences for foreign fee disclosure may offset consumer benefits. Few consumer complaints have been made about fee disclosure, consumer groups' concerns are more focused on the fairness of surcharges, and surveys suggest that only a minority of ATM cardholders pay foreign fees. A requirement for real-time foreign fee disclosure could produce unintended consequences, which GAO believes could offset any potential benefits of disclosure.
