Customers Limited plans to introduce surcharge-free automatic teller machines that will cater to any bank or credit union that wishes to sign on.Tim Wildash, managing director of Customers, said the firm identified about 200 sites suitable for ATMs that the firm plans to brand as "multi bank" and, if all issuers signed on, could be branded as "any bank". Some of these may be placed in shopping centres where banks at present each install their own machines and that often operate at a loss (given the level of rents). The is open to increasing the number sites if there is demand.Direct charging for ATM transactions comes into force from 3 March 2009, and Customers' business plan is built around the effective doubling in transaction revenues, to them, that this shift will deliver.At present Customers earns around $1 a transaction under the interchange agreements that govern wholesale fees paid by card issuers to ATM owners for ATM transactions.From March ATM owners will have to charge customers directly and make these fees transparent before confirming a transaction. Banks in most cases won't charge their customers for use of a bank-owned (or branded) ATM.If these surcharges follow the so-called foreign ATM fee pricing of around $2, as is likely, then the transaction revenue for Customers will surge from March, though depending on the extent to which there is consumer resistance and the pricing tactics of other banks.Wildash told the company's AGM yesterday he doubted consumers would walk away from the pubs, clubs and other "convenience" venues where the firm's ATMs are mostly located in order to use a branded ATM of their own bank.Customers own about 5100 ATMs, some of which use Bank of Queensland branding. It also manages a small residual fleet of ATMs for Citibank (which sold the rest of its ATM fleet to Suncorp earlier this year).Wildash said transaction levels continued to rise over recent months as the average level of a withdrawal fell, which appears to be a consequence of the turn in the economic cycle and the loss of consumer confidence.