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Legislation on access to cash is signed into law

President Michael D Higgins has signed into law legislation aimed at protecting the role of cash in the Irish financial system.

Central Bank Governor Gabriel Makhlouf has welcomed the enactment, saying that the regulator was committed to ensuring that cash was readily available as a means of payment.

The Finance (Provision of Access to Cash Infrastructure) Act 2024 emerged from a recommendation made by the Retail Banking Review, published in November 2022.

The review highlighted the role of cash in ensuring that people did not experience financial exclusion, and as a safety net in the event of electronic banking or the payments infrastructure being hit by outages or cyber-attacks.

Monitoring compliance

The act places obligations on the three main banks to provide access to ATMs and cash points.

It also provides for the registration and supervision by the Central Bank of ATM operators and cash-in-transit providers.

“This is an important step forward in ensuring that consumers continue to have access to cash, and in protecting the resilience of the cash system,” said Makhlouf.

“We look forward to fulfilling our new responsibilities under this legislation – including monitoring compliance with the access-to-cash criteria to be established by the Minister for Finance and the oversight of ATM operators and cash-in-transit providers,” he added.

Makhlouf said that the Central Bank would provide further updates on implementation of the legislation throughout the process.