Hunter United, a credit union in Newcastle will ditch nine of its ten ATMs, relying on big banks and their "fee free" ATM fleet to fulfil the cash needs of customers."We will be phasing out our Hunter United branded ATM network over the next 18 months," the credit union advised members late last week. "Following the move by the big banks last year to waive fees on their foreign card ATM usage for cash withdrawals and balance enquiries, we also waived our non-Hunter United ATM fees. Together, these decisions have allowed our members fee-free access to over 12,000 ATMs operated by the big banks across Australia, including over 160 conveniently located right here in the Hunter Region."With so many nearby ATMs to choose from we have made the decision to progressively phase out our own Hunter United branded ATMs as each machine's service agreement expires." This decision removes five per cent of the regional ATM fleet.Hunter said it would "continue to operate our convenient drive thru ATM at Broadmeadow," the company's head office (pictured).The credit union added that "the savings associated with no longer operating our own ATMs will allow us to eliminate and/or reduce a number of the account fees and transactional charges currently payable by our members. An announcement regarding our new and simplified fees and charges schedule will follow in 2019."