Malaysia Is Scrapping The RM1 ATM Fee From 1 July 2026

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Every time you used another bank’s ATM in Malaysia, you paid RM1 for the inconvenience of not being near your own bank’s machine. From 1 July, that stops.

The Association of Banks in Malaysia (ABM), the Association of Islamic Banking and Financial Institutions Malaysia (AIBIM), and the Association of Development Finance Institutions of Malaysia (ADFIM) announced on 15 June that the RM1 interbank cash withdrawal fee will be waived at ATMs and Smart Recycler Machines (SRMs) across the country, effective 1 July 2026. The initiative was carried out in collaboration with Payments Network Malaysia (PayNet).

This waiver applies specifically to interbank withdrawals, meaning when you use an ATM operated by a different bank from the one that issued your debit card. Withdrawing from your own bank’s machine has always been free. What changes on 1 July is the RM1 charge that kicks in the moment you use a competitor’s machine. For most people, that is the transaction that actually costs money, because the nearest ATM is rarely the one belonging to their bank.

Debit cardholders will now be able to make unlimited free withdrawals at more than 14,000 ATMs and SRMs nationwide, regardless of which bank issued their card. No cap on the number of transactions, no minimum withdrawal amount, and no restriction on which bank’s machine you walk up to.

In Kuala Lumpur or Penang, finding your own bank’s ATM is rarely a problem. In Kelantan, Terengganu, Sabah, or smaller towns across the peninsula, the machine nearest to you has frequently belonged to a different bank from the one on your card. Every withdrawal from that machine cost RM1.

The banking associations framed the move as part of a commitment to ensuring reliable, convenient, and affordable access to cash, while helping to ease the everyday financial burden on Malaysians.

PayNet processed 8.44 billion digital payment transactions in 2025 — roughly 260 transactions per second, every second, across the full year. Bank transaction volumes grew 30.69 per cent year-on-year, while non-bank participants, including e-wallets and fintech players, saw growth of 71.7 per cent.

ATM withdrawals accounted for 49.8 per cent of payment market activity in 2025, down from 63.3 per cent in 2021. Cash is losing ground steadily and measurably. Non-urban transaction volumes tripled year-on-year in Terengganu, Kelantan, and Kedah in 2025 — which means digital payment adoption is accelerating in the exact communities where cash dependency has historically been highest.

And yet the banks are investing in making cash cheaper to access. It reflects the reality that digital payment adoption, however fast it moves, does not happen uniformly. A pasar malam vendor in Kota Bharu and a retiree managing a fixed monthly pension are not the same users as a Klang Valley professional with three e-wallets on their phone. The fee waiver is an acknowledgement that the cash infrastructure needs to work for everyone still relying on it, regardless of where digital adoption sits in the aggregate.

The waiver applies automatically to all debit cardholders at all participating bank ATMs and SRMs from 1 July 2026. No registration, no opt-in, and no app update required.

The waiver does not cover credit card cash advances, which carry separate fees and interest charges and are an entirely different transaction. It also applies specifically to machines operated by licensed banks in Malaysia — independent or non-bank cash machines fall outside the scope of this announcement.