ATMIA Announces Support to Debanking Bill

Quoting from last week’s announcement, “Senate Banking Committee Chairman Tim Scott (R-S.C.) introduced the Financial Integrity and Regulation Management (FIRM) Act, his legislation to remove reputational risk as a component of federal supervision.” Despite previous statements from FinCEN and the OCC, as well as changes to the FFIEC Bank Examination Manual, debanking of ATM operators continues to be a serious problem. Senator Scott’s bill would now make that requirement federal law.

Senator Scott’s office reached out to ATMIA (the ATM Industry Association) seeking its support for this new measure. The availability of banking services for independent ATM deployers (IADs) has been problematic since Operation Choke Point was launched by the Obama administration in March of 2013. Passage of this bill will hopefully normalize access to those services for ATM and other cash intensive businesses.

ATMIA will also be meeting with Senator Scott’s staff during its Washington, DC Fly-in on March 26 to discuss this and other industry issues. ATMIA members interested in participating in the Fly-in may contact David Tente, Executive Director, ATMIA USA & Americas for more information. ATMIA has voiced our concern over this issue since the beginning and will continue to advocate for the industry. As part of our support we had compiled an Operation Choke Point Resource Kit to assist IADs in pursuing their banking discussions with financial institutions.