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Dáil passes bill on access to cash

The Dáil has passed a bill aimed at protecting the role of cash in the Irish financial system.

The Finance (Provision of Access to Cash Infrastructure) Bill 2024 will now go to the Seanad.

The bill emerged from a recommendation made by the Retail Banking Review, published in November 2022.

The review highlighted the role of cash in ensuring that people did not experience financial exclusion, and as a safety net in the event of electronic banking or the payments infrastructure being hit by outages or cyber-attacks.

Banks’ obligations

The bill places obligations on the three main banks to provide access to ATMs and cash points.

It also provides for the registration and supervision by the Central Bank of ATM operators and cash-in-transit providers.

Under the proposals, banks must ensure that, in each of the State’s eight regions:

• A specified percentage of the population must be within no less than 5km and no more than 10km of an ATM,
• There is a specified number of ATMs per 100,000 people,
• A specified percentage of the population must be within no less than 5km and no more than 10km of a cash service point – either a bank branch or a post office.

An attempt by Sinn Féin to reduce the criteria to 5km was defeated.