Bank Fees Rise in First Half of 2012
In the last few years Congress has passed new consumer
protections for bank customers, but that hasn't stopped fees from rising. A
semi-annual study by MoneyRates.com finds that bank customers saw all types of
fees creep a little higher in the first half of the year.
For example, checking accounts got more expensive. The
average monthly service fee on checking accounts is $12.08, compared with
$11.28 in the previous six months. That's just under $145 a year for the
privilege of having a checking account at a bank.
For those who wanted to open a checking account in the
first six months of the year, the amount of funds needed to do so also rose.
The average amount to open an account is $408.76, versus $391.41. While that's
not a fee, that amount -- as it rises -- acts as a barrier to prevent poorer consumers
from opening a checking account.
If you want to avoid that monthly service fee on your
checking account, you can do so at many banks by keeping more money in the
account. But again, that threshold is rising. The study shows you now need an
average of $4,446.57 in an account to avoid the fee; it was $3,590.83 in the
previous six months.
Of course, if your bank offers free checking, there is no
minimum balance and no monthly service fees. But finding one of these banks got
a little harder in the first half of the year. Only 35.3 percent of the
accounts in the survey were free of the monthly fee, down from 38.8 percent.
Thanks to new regulations consumers must now opt-in for
overdraft "protection," meaning they can avoid overdraft fees
altogether by not taking that action. But for those who are still paying for
overdraft coverage on their checking accounts, they're paying more.
The average overdraft fee in the first six months of 2012
was $29.83, up 60 cents from the previous six months.
The analysts at MoneyRates.com say in the past, their
surveys showed some fees rising and some falling or staying the same. This
survey is different, they say, because the average fee rose across all
categories.
But there was a difference when you broke banks down by
size. The bigger the bank, the more the fees went up. For example, the average
monthly maintenance fee at large banks was $13.88 but only $9.87 at small
banks. And almost all the free checking accounts were found at small banks.
Last November a grassroots backlash against rising bank
fees resulted in "Bank Transfer Day," when fed-up consumers were
encouraged to switch their accounts from banks with high fees to small banks
and credit unions where fees were lower. The result appears to be even higher
fees for those consumers who remained behind.
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