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Zagreb - Croatian lawmakers on Thursday welcomed a government proposal under which electrochemical protection would have to be installed in all external ATMs, but said that the deadline of five years to do so was too long and should be shortened.
"Why are banks being favoured again? If the government wants to protect its citizens, it should not set a deadline of five years but one month," MP Krešo Beljak (Croatian Peasant Party) said during discussion on a bill of amendments to the Monetary Institutions Protection Act.
Boris Lalovac (Social Democratic Party) too thinks that five years is too long, saying that the most elegant way to do this would be to tie the new protection rules to Croatia's joining the European monetary union.
Marija Selak Raspudić (Bridge) suggested a three-year transition period while Miroslav Škoro (Homeland Movement) said that the bill was once again going in banks' favour.
It will be decided whether five-year deadline is best
The state Secretary at the Interior Ministry, Žarko Katić, said that by the time the draft bill was prepared a decision would be made to see if the five-year deadline was the best or not. "One month is unrealistic for almost 6,000 ATMs that exist in Croatia," he said.
When criminals break into an ATM and try to open the cash box, the money inside will be destroyed with dye, he said, adding that this way of protection is also successfully used in transporting cash.
He said that introducing electrochemical protection would come at a certain cost to banks, but stressed that security was more important.
Katić said that there are 34 banks operating in Croatia and that they have 5,938 ATMs, including 1,257 placed inside the banks and 4,681 outside.