THE Government yesterday refused to interfere in the imposition by banks of handling charges for big cash deposits.
The Secretary for Financial Services, Michael Cartland, said the administration was aware of consumer concern.
But he said: ''The administration considers it should, wherever possible, avoid interference with commercial decisions, which generally are best left to the market.
''There is no uniformity of practices between them [banks] with regard to these charges and therefore there is scope for consumer choice. Market forces are able to operate freely with regard to these charges.'' Mr Cartland understood that only one per cent of total cash deposits attracted any charges and the main reason for doing so was to recover costs involving large amounts of bank notes which might involve no corresponding generation of income.
He noted that consumer interests were not just the interests of those making the deposits. If the banks were to withdraw these charges and absorb them, the effect would be to pass them on to their other customers.
The question which then arose was whether those other customers should subsidise the activities of the relatively small number of large cash depositors.