Money for nothing ... Paige Doughty uses one of the ATMs at Sydney's Coogee Bay Hotel. Picture: The Daily Telegraph Source: The Daily Telegraph

The four machines average a combined 11,000 transactions a month at $2 a pop - that's $22,000 a month or $264,000 a year.

Why are we still paying to access our money from ATMs, two years after the Reserve Bank reformed the industry?

"I think it's extraordinary," Australia Institute deputy director Josh Fear said.

The institute yesterday published research revealing 40 per cent of those aged 18 to 24 pay to get their own money from a cash machine on a weekly basis.

The rate is 26 per cent among the general population.

"Pubs capitalise on people's laziness," Paige Doughty, 19, said yesterday after using one of the Coogee Bay's ATMs.

"I'd rather use a CBA ATM so I don't pay a fee. But you can't always find one." Australians spend $750 million a year on ATM fees.

In April 2009, the Reserve Bank made changes including that customers be charged directly by ATM owners, rather than indirectly through their financial institution. The new rules also required that ATMs display the cost before customers confirm the transaction.

One of the objectives of the reforms was to put downward pressure on the cost of ATM withdrawals, but Mr Fear said that had not happened.

The Coogee Bay Hotel has doubled its number of ATMs and made them all non-bank CashConnect machines.

It receives hefty rent from the machines' owner, Banktech.

Banktech CEO Paul Stewart would not comment.

"The provision of ATMs is now so profitable that rents for ATM sites have been rising, and investors can now buy one ... in return for a guaranteed revenue stream," Mr Fear said.

A company called My ATM listed on the ASX last month.

One of My ATM's directors is Grant Chapman, a former federal politician who vowed to lower ATM fees.

Another is former Parramatta MP Ross Cameron. My ATM's float has made him a multi-millionaire - on paper, at least.

Since the reforms, the number of cash machine sites increased by more than 1000, the ATM Industry Association said.

"Without ATM fees, cardholders, many small businesses and local communities would be disadvantaged as our members would have to reconsider the sustainability of a number of ATM locations," executive director Sandra Smith said.