After being on campus for more than 10 years, the Wells Fargo ATM machine has been replaced since July with two El Camino College Federal Credit Union machines.

Investigations for new sources began after Wells Fargo Bank refused to put additional machines on the campus grounds said assistant bookstore director Andrew Nasatir.

“We had two issues and one was that we wanted multiple machines and secondly, we wanted a situation where if students or individuals didn’t belong to that financial institution, they wouldn’t be charged the ridiculous $2.50 fee,” Nasatir said.

Based on these criteria, Nasatir said they were fortunate enough to find the local credit union that could provide machines and the charge to students would only be $1.

“We wanted the transaction fee to be a lot less than what the norm was,” Nasatir said.

Furthermore, assistant manager of the ECC Federal Credit Union Donna Storgryn said that faculty or students working at the school are currently eligible to join the credit union.

“The remaining student body will be subject to the $1 transaction charge, but they are currently working on negotiations that will allow all students to become members,” Storgryn said.

In addition, Storgryn said that individuals who may be members of other credit unions within the U.S. can use their ATM cards at these machines at no charge.

“There is no transaction fee for using a credit union debit card, but the $1 fee does apply to all other cards from banking institutions,” Storgryn said.

So far, Nasatir said there are only two machines on campus, one just inside the Schauerman Library and the other in the Manhattan convenience store.

“They are considering a third machine, but this will be determined according to the number of hits or usage that transpires with these machines,” Nasatir said.

In addition, he says that they are trying to figure out the best place to put the third machine-either in the Student Activity Center or the police department.

“We were thinking maybe the police department because people may feel more safe when making cash transactions,” Nasatir said.

Nasatir said he assumes the credit union is pleased with the usage of these machines because they have doubled the number from one to two.

“We obviously wanted to put them in a central location like the Manhattan Store or the library and if you take an average day, students are going to be at either one of these two places,” Nasatir said.

Student Chanelle Brimmer says she is a customer with Bank of America.

Brimmer said she doesn’t mind using the new machines because she’s not always able to get to her bank.

“This one is much more beneficial because it’s a flat dollar compared to being charged $2.50 by Wells Fargo,” Brimmer said.

But for student Renika Hodges, paying the $1 fee is more than she wanted to pay since she is a customer with Wells Fargo.

“It affects me because now I have to pay a transaction fee and before I didn’t have to pay anything since I bank at Wells Fargo,” Hodges said.

However, Nasatir said that in thinking of the best location for a third machine, it would probably be where the most activity occurs or where students hang out.

“I think the credit union is waiting because these machines cost tens of thousands of dollars; these are very expensive machines,” Nasatir said.

“There’s a whole thing connected to the federal government when it comes to cash, so the credit union has to do a lot of things first,” he added.

But when it comes to placing a machine in the police department, Nasatir said that 97 percent of the time, students on campus have access to one of the two locations available with the exception of a few.

“The only people who may be inconvenienced would be those here late on Friday afternoon and the library is closed or those who have Sunday classes,” Nasatir said.

“But if we put one in the police station, the advantage would be that it would be accessible twenty-four hours seven days a week,” Nasatir added.