The Bank of Zambia (BoZ) will introduce a national scheme aiming at standardising ATMs to allow account holders withdraw cash from any machine regardless of the bank and card type.
The new system will enable the withdrawal of cash using non-VISA cards on VISA ATM machines and vice versa, the bank said.
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Banji Milambo, BoZ regulatory policy non-banking financial supervision senior inspector, said the introduction of the national scheme would reduce concerns of long queues to access money at most ATMs in the country.
Milambo said: "I want to state that plans are underway to introduce a national scheme which allows people to withdraw money from any bank even if the ATM cards are not VISA and we hope this will address challenges faced by most of our banking institutions," he said.
He said that BoZ wanted to ensure that the fees for using different ATMs are minimal saying that the charges should not be a hindrance to the usage of the available machines.
Central province permanent secretary Edwidge Mutale recently called on BoZ to urgently call all commercial banks in Kabwe to set up more ATMs to allow customers access money without difficulties.
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By GlobalDataAmong the various issues caused by ATMs in Kabwe, Mutale said some people who tried to access their money at ATMs between the hours of 01:00 and 03:00 have ended up being robbed after withdrawing their cash.
"It is saddening that my office has continued to receive complaints over long queues while in some cases the ATMs are not operational and we feel that the only way to resolve this matter is for BoZ to direct the banking institutions to have more than three ATMs each," she said.
