NDP Leader Jack Layton is applauding the Commons finance committee's decision endorsing an NDP resolution to review the touchy subject of ATM fees.
"So far on ATMs, all we have from the government is conversations and chats and what we need is concrete action to stop the banks from gouging people when they're simply trying to take their own money out of the banks," Layton told reporters on Friday.
"We're happy that the finance committee is going to accept our proposal that there be an investigation and that we find out how it is the banks are being permitted to do this gouging so that we can lay out a plan that will stop it."
NDP Finance Critic Judy Wasylycia-Leis said she thinks the banks will come under strict scrutiny in the review.
"We'll have chance to thoroughly review the issue and put the pressure on the banks," she said Friday.
The committee will likely invite the major banks, the Canadian Bankers Association and representatives of credit unions to testify.
When asked whether she believed the bankers would be willing to face the committee, Wasylycia-Leis said she thought
Finance Minister Jim Flaherty has written to the major banks asking them to explain the charges.
Flaherty has said that he's had "fairly lively conversations about the subject with the banks" and that the government wants to promote choice and competition within the industry.
But Wasylycia-Leis accuses Flaherty of talking a lot and "doing very little."
The New Democrats have been pushing for an end to transaction fees at ATMs.
"We think it's quite doable to do away with the fees for using not only your own bank's ATM but, of course, a competitor's ATM," she said.
Wasylycia-Leis was unclear, however, whether the committee would have jurisdiction over private, so-called white label ABMs, which aren't affiliated any specific bank.
The NDP estimates ATM fees ding Canadians for $420 million a year, which Layton said is a lot for consumers but not for the banks, which made $19 billion in profits last year.
With files from The Canadian Press
