What was claimed
From 1 October this year, free cash withdrawals in Britain will come to an end and from that date, a charge of £1.50 will apply to each ATM transaction.
Our verdict
This isn’t happening. UK Finance, the trade body for banking and financial services, says this claim is incorrect.
Misleading videos circulating online claim that from October 1, free cash withdrawals will end across the UK. But this isn’t happening.
UK Finance, which represents hundreds of finance and banking firms across the UK, told us the claims made in these videos are “incorrect”.
Most ATMs are free to use across the UK, and do not charge withdrawal fees. We could not find any evidence about any new policies being brought in to change this. One such video making this claim has been viewed over 160,000 times.
The Financial Conduct Authority also confirmed to Full Fact that there are no plans to end free ATM cash withdrawals or introduce £1.50 charges.
Several slightly different videos making this claim have been posted on TikTok and Facebook.
In all of them, a voiceover says that from 1 October this year, free cash withdrawals in Britain “will come to an end” and from that date, a charge of £1.50 will apply to each transaction at an ATM, no matter how small or large.
The audio appears to ape Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer's voice and clues such as the even cadence and unnatural intonation, suggest it has likely been created using artificial intelligence, though we can’t rule out that it has been faked another way, for example by using an impersonator. You can read more about how to spot AI audio, and the challenges of doing this, in our guide.
This video is part of a trend we have spotted on social media in recent months, involving videos, often originating on TikTok, that make alarmist and false claims about the government’s changes to finance rules and limits on personal freedoms. A Full Fact investigation found such videos have been shared hundreds of thousands of times.
Before sharing videos such as this that you see online, first consider whether they come from a trustworthy and verifiable source. Our Full Fact toolkit contains guides and tips to help you navigate information online.
This article is part of our work fact checking potentially false pictures, videos and stories on Facebook. You can read more about this—and find out how to report Facebook content—here. For the purposes of that scheme, we’ve rated this claim as false because this is not being introduced as a policy in the UK.
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