Another chink in the ATM Link

NATIONWIDE Building Society is to charge savers 60p every time they use another society's cash machine.

Bank and building society co-operation over use of each other's machines is crumbling. Halifax started charging 60p for using 'foreign' Link machines in 1989; Abbey National followed last year. Woolwich began charging 40p in September.

Nationwide was charged about 40p every time one its customers used another institution's Link machine. But it also received payments every time its own machines were used by others. This balance was disturbed as savers started seeking out their own machines to avoid charges.

The new 60p charge will be introduced on 21 November. Nationwide current account customers will not be charged for using any Link machine. Savers with InvestDirect postal accounts have always been charged 50p for using one of Nationwide's 758 machines, and pounds 1 for other machines. There are more than 6,000 Link machines in the UK and users have access to 70,000 worldwide.

National & Provincial, Alliance & Leicester, Bradford & Bingley and the Leeds building societies have no plans to start charging customers.