ATM limits.

All machines have a withdrawal limit set by whoever own and operate them. If per- use limit is lower than your daily limit set by your card issuer, you can usually make multiple withdrawals. If a particular ATM won't let you do this, just use another machine belonging to someone else.

In my experience, ATMs don't hold notes bigger than 100, sometimes 50 euro.

500 euro notes are rarely seen and used. Withdrawal limit is similar to UK, sometimes lower.

Well, in Japan, where most ATMs don't accept non-Japanese cards, it's not unusual to have a daily withdrawal limit as high as 5 million yen (25,000) from your own bank machines. It's a very safe country :-)

Alec

There is a limit to the number of notes an ATM can dispense, in many cases a maximum of 25 notes. That limits you to 500 in the UK unless 50 notes are issued.

MarkBR

I needed to get cash out for a building job. My daily limit is 500 from my bank. Anyway, use a tesco ATM - limit of 400.

So I take out 400.

Then put card back in and take out the remaining 100!

In Belgium the highest note I have found is 50 Euros and (there are more than 100 banks in Belgium) Fortis Bank only allows a weekly withdrawal of

1200 Euros with 600 Euros max in one day.

Andy

A maximum of 25 notes is a good rule of thumb to assume for an ATM. The maximum I have seen is 40 notes, which many HSBC machines seem able to dispense.

This is all very interesting. I assume the 25 and 40 figures above are based upon the bank's policies. Any idea why they would chose such amounts?

I guess that few 50 notes are dispensed anyhow - shops do not seem to want them and I have never really (if ever) seem them in circulation?

As for these limits - let us say one was super rich and had a 10K per day limit on his Monte Carlo Platinum ATM card, and the local NatWest only allowed 25 notes at 20, could the guy just keep sticking his card in and getting another 500 each time?

Because, might not the machine be programmed to say: a) this guy is taking all the cash, other customer's need some, let's stop his card - in other words a programme that says once X has been taken out, then no more?

[Of course, I have no idea how much ATM's actually contain so don't know if this is a viable situation.]

b) this seems very suspicious, like someone's card and PIN have just been stolen - in other words the programme says that such behaviour will block the card and prevent it from taking more cash out?

[Or would the machine only care if the PIN was wrong and/or the card was reported lost or stolen.]

TIA.

The one opposite the bbc was showing its windows desktop today. :) So you couldn't take anything from that one.

I believe its based on the physical capability of the machine to dispense more than a certain number of notes in one transaction.

Yes

I don't think any machine is programmed to do that. As long as the machine gets authorisation from the bank who issued the card then it goes ahead with the transaction. Building the capability you suggest into each machine would be quite complex. It would have to memorise every card that it had processed that day and match each transaction against that list. That seems a bit unnecessary. Why not just design a machine that holds enough cash to meets then demands made on it?

Suspicious card usage is more effectively monitored and assessed by the bank who issued the card. Each transaction is approved by the card issuing bank so there's no need for the ATM to have that level of sophistication built into it.

Yes. The ATM has the ability to retain a card if instructed to do so by the organisation who issued it.

--SNIP--

On this point I have seen machines that allow over 1,000 to be withdrawn in the Gulf - in the UAE some machines even have a quick cash option of 5,000 Dirhams - that is nearly 1,000 currently.

On the other point you can often make multiple withdrawals without even removing your card. In Indonesia where machines used to give only 800,000 Rupees - about 50 maximum you got asked another transaction and you can say yes another 800,000. I've done it up to 4 times as I needed 2.5million to pay a hotel bill.

Mark BR

In message , Chris Blunt writes

Not always the case, there is also an 'offline' limit as well.

No, its in the card.

No, its in the card.

Eh? Just have a infinitely large cash stack in the back of machine?

No its not.

What is an 'offline' limit and what does it do?

So therefore, are you suggesting that my theory that once could just put the card into the machine for X number of occassions would be accepted or not. E.g. taking out 5 x 500 for example?

So, who are ATM transactions approved by then? I would have assumed that the ATM contacts the bank which confirms the PIN is accurate or not and the card is not lost or stolen?

Are you sure? I understand its all done at the bank these days.

As above.

No. I said "enough cash to meet the demands on it", and the demands are not infinite.

It may not have been in the past, but I understand that all transactions require approval from the card issuing bank nowadays. Too many scams made offline authorisation too risky. If not, then why, when I try to use my card in an ATM which has lost its communications link can I not withdraw any cash at all?

In message , Qintin writes

It allows the ATM to pay out some dosh even when it is offline.

No, I'm saying that to design a machine that holds enough cash to meet the demands made on it merely means having a huge supply of cash.

In reality, cards need to have some form of limit in order to ensure that machines dont run out of dosh and to prevent fraud due to system failure or offline times.

Many are not formally 'approved'.

Sadly not. Sometimes, yes, but not all the time.

In message , Chris Blunt writes

Well I might not be up to the minute, but its not ALL done at the bank.

Well you may very well be more up to date than me, but I whilst I know that there are times when an ATM will cease activity because of a lost link, this suspension of dispensing does not necessarily occur every time.

But this would mean that the ATM would not be able to verify information with the bank, surely?

And why would an ATM need to be offline anyhow?

Right, I understand about the limit thing. But the point I was making is that in order to buypass the limit on the ATM (assuming the card has a huge limit for whatever reasoning) would one not just insert it into the ATM multiple times. Assuming the ATM held enough cash that is?

Well how can the machine tell if the PIN is valid and there is enough cash in the account then? Or, do you have a different definition for the word "approved"?

So, why would this not happen? Does this not make a mockery of the idea that you have to have a PIN with the card? Does this really mean that in certain cases you can just type in anything?

Thanks.

In message , Qintin writes

Yes.

It used to be that it only went on line o few times a day to exchange data. I will go offline during normal daily balancing, also the server and line will go down from time to time.

In message , Qintin writes

We've had this here before. The PIN is checked locally.

Is possible, in certain circs, to cause an authorised overdraft by using an ATM whilst it is offline.

As already said, the PIN is validated locally, not via the on line link.

Sorry, I don't get you. What does "locally" mean? Does the machine compare it to the PIN on the card or what?