Withdrawal surcharge

Definition

The fee an ATM operator charges the cardholder, which is the route's main line of revenue.

Why It Matters

It is earned per transaction, which is why the federal withdrawal count is the number to watch: it has fallen from 5.2 billion to 3.4 billion in under a decade. A route's revenue is the surcharge times a number that has fallen in every period the Federal Reserve measured, so growth has to come from raising the fee, adding machines, or winning better locations. Ask what each machine charges, when it was last raised, and what happened to that machine's volume afterwards.