New York

Please be sure you have read State-Law Rules the Affect Electronic Funds Transfers before proceeding. The introduction describes the limitations of the following summary.

New York has a statute that imposes requirements on ATM “operators.” An ATM operator is one who operates an ATM, but does not hold the account the consumer is accessing from the ATM. [New York Gen. Bus. 399-y, 1] Under the New York law, an ATM operator cannot charge the consumer a fee for using the ATM—unless the operator provides a notice and the consumer elects to continue with the transaction after receiving the notice. [New York Gen. Bus. 399-y, 2]

The notice must appear on the ATM screen or in a paper form. This notice can appear after the consumer initiates the transaction, but must appear before the consumer is irrevocably committed to completing the transaction. This on-screen or paper notice must include three statements. First, that a fee is imposed for the use of the machine. Second, the amount of the fee. Third, that the consumer can cancel the transaction without being assessed a fee. [New York Gen. Bus. 399-y, 3]

The New York statute imposes a penalty on ATM operators who do not comply. The penalty is a maximum of $250 for each transaction. [New York Gen. Bus. 399-y, 4(a)] The operator will not be liable for noncompliance if the operator posted the notice and sometime later the notice is damaged or someone other than the operator removes it. [New York Gen. Bus. 399-y, 4(b)]

As we mentioned above, these New York requirements are very similar to those of Section 16 of Regulation E. There has not, at the time of this writing, been any preemption determination by the Federal Reserve Board.