A new ATM was installed in the Paphos district village of Panayia, Diko MP Chrysanthos Savvides said on Thursday.

“It is with great joy and satisfaction that we announce that yet another commitment of ours has been implemented. The ATM was installed in the village of Panayia, satisfying an important request made by the residents and enhancing the services offered to them,” he said.

He offered his “warm thanks” to the village council and to mountain commissioner Charalambos Christofinas for their “support and contribution to the implementation of the project”.

“We are continuing to work consistently and responsibly to improve the quality of life of the residents of our mountainous communities,” he said.

The installation of the new ATM comes after MPs had long expressed concerns about the lack of banking facilities – particularly ATMs – in rural and mountainous areas of the island, with the number of operational ATMs having been in decline in recent years.

Last year, House commerce committee chairman and Disy MP Kyriacos Hadjiyiannis had complained that people have to “wander about” from village to village to find an ATM, and that when they do, “it’s usually out of order”.

At the same committee session, MP Michalis Yiakoumi had said that his great uncle had died in a traffic accident while riding his motorcycle around the Famagusta district in search of an ATM.

“I have strong feelings about this,” he said.

Previously, Hadjiyiannis had said Cyprus’ banks are “not interested” in the lack of ATMs in rural areas, and that they are “devoid of social responsibility”.

“It is imperative that they come to serve the elderly. It is their human right to receive money from a reasonable distance,” he said.

He went on to say that “it is a shame what is happening, and I am sorry, because, at the end of the day, our banks only take. They absorb profit from people without returning anything at all.”

Akel MP Costas Costa said he was “greatly disappointed” that “representatives of the banks and the Central Bank are basically telling us that there is no problem.”

He added that they tried to “present some alternative methods that the elderly cannot use.”

“It’s like they live in a parallel universe, in their own cloud. They don’t live in the real world, they don’t want to know what’s happening in the countryside and in the villages where pensioners are suffering.”

He said banks had told the committee that “it would be a problem to install ATMs because the maintenance costs are too high.

“Where do the hundreds of millions that banks make every year go? Could they not invest a very small part of those profits in real people?”

He added, “what we heard today is unacceptable, it is offensive, and it is provocative. Banks must begin to finally understand that they cannot behave in this way.”

Installing an ATM costs between €12,000 and €15,000. The cost is borne by the provider, JCC, in which Cyprus’ banks all have shares.