GOVERNMENT official Delano Seiveright has received unanimous support for a tweet knocking banks for non-working Automated Teller Machines (ATMs) and calling on them to act.

In a tweet posted on Saturday, Seiveright said, “Too many ATM machines not working… big inconvenience for many… tiring… getting worse I see… shake-up/changes needed.”

Seiveright ended his tweet with official tags for the National Commercial Bank, the Bank of Nova Scotia, Finance Minister Dr Nigel Clarke, the Bank of Jamaica, and Industry, Investment and Commerce Minister Aubyn Hill.

Seiveright, a former president of Jamaica Labour Party young professionals group Generation 2000, joins a growing number of politicians and other Jamaicans complaining about poor services and high charges by banks.

Just over a week ago, Member of Parliament for St Catherine Southern Fitz Jackson initiated legal action against Scotiabank over a service charge he had to pay for the encashment of a cheque back in 2019.

Jackson submitted a claim to the Commercial Division of the Supreme Court on Tuesday, July 19, over Scotiabank’s “failure to negotiate a negotiable instrument”.

Seiveright, in subsequent comments to the Jamaica Observer, said “It is unacceptable to have to go to no less than six ATMs at three prominent locations, including the headquarters of one of the banks, before getting through with a basic transaction.

“And what is worse is the fact that at each location customers are complaining that the ATMs were either completely out of service or malfunctioning, and having to go from ATM to ATM to find a working one. It is worse for people with little disposable income, having to rely on public transport and worse live outside Kingston. It’s a massive failure on the part of the banks. If you can’t even have a reliably functioning machine at your headquarters, all hope is lost.”

Among the responses to Seiveright’s tweet from other Twitter users were:

“Why should it be the public duty to police your machines? Those things can even be done remotely to know which one needs funds…which one needs servicing or is/isn’t working… so much banking fees. Outdated ATMs,” wrote the person who posts using the handle @islandgirl4life.

“Downtime % for both ATMs and POS systems should be a KPI [key peformance indicator] that banks have to report monthly to BOJ and have published. Customers deserve transparency over these figures so they can make informed choices about who to bank with,” said the individual with the handle @pigeonbutler.

“Yes! We the consumers are at the mercy of these big companies that are simply not looking out for us,” added @teddyajones.

“Don’t leave out the POS machines that go down often,” wrote @jaevionn.

That spurred @ibkaikai to post “Totally agree, bro.”

Seiveright told the Observer that he will raise the matter with the relevant banks and the Bank of Jamaica, which undertakes the supervision of deposit-taking institutions in Jamaica, as required by Section 34A of the Bank of Jamaica Act.