Banks' threat: "regulation is forcing us" to "raise fees on our customers"

[ProSense]

As Banks Raise Fees, You Have Options

By RON LIEBER

So now we know what the big banks’ New Year’s resolution was: Keep the profits flowing from basic checking accounts.

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“We don’t want to raise fees on our customers,” a company spokesman said. “But unfortunately, regulation is forcing us to do it. And as a result, some customers may end up unbanked.”

This statement is striking for a number of reasons, and the eye-popping earnings the bank announced on Friday don’t exactly make the company more worthy of sympathy. So I’ve spent the last week trying to figure out why I was so sure I did not believe it the instant I read it.

So let’s take it apart, shall we?

First of all, Chase does want to raise fees on customers. It’s not the only bank that wants to, and this is a fine thing if you are a shareholder. After all, any business ought to strive to produce a product or offer a service that is so good or necessary that customers will keep on using it even after a price increase.

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h/t Felix Salmon

[Kali]

1. THE WORD IS GREED, NOT REGULATION

[socialist_n_TN]

5. Another word is..........

EXTORTION or BLACKMAIL. Oh Hell, just call it what it is... CAPITALISM. That one word covers everything said.

[bluerum]

2. Hmmm. My local credit union is not raising fees. eom

[phantom power]

3. +1

[young but wise]

4. Exactly.

[Kali]

11. the two credit unions in my little town are WORSE than the big banks

fees are the same, interest rates the same, services are less available
and one of them is a freaking flag waving overly patriotic scary damn place to walk into (with no atm or even a drive-through)

[CreekDog]

15. you don't need to bank with a local credit union

there are probably numerous ones in Tucson that you can sign up with online and bank locally through Coop ATMs. the idea that you have to bank down the street is kind of outmoded now --at the very least, it often forces you into a worse deal.

[boppers]

18. Which town? (I love a good google hunt)

Lets see if we can find you something?

[boppers]

17. +1

If "unbanking" means more money in credit unions, I'm all for it.

[hedgehog]

6. Four words:

Credit



Union



Savings


Bank

[ProSense]

7. Here's what I don't get:

Credit unions are a solution, but they are not the solution.

Why?

Most people don't have their money in credit unions and there is simply no way to get everyone to move their money to a credit union.

The solution then is not to claim that it's the person's fault for using a bank (which to me implies that banks should be allowed to do whatever they want to), it's to rectify the problem.

What's the point of regulation if the solution is just say no?

[hedgehog]

8. Call it an interim solution.

[bluerum]

13. Pretty much the end point for. All the services I need. Not a lot of branch offices

but I can do everything including check deposits online.

[boppers]

20. The solutions to crappy, expensive, cars:

1. Cheaper cars from competition.
2. More car makers vying for dollars.
3. Regulations on how crappy a car can be.

The problem with a "regulation" toolkit is that eventually you wind up with a crappy state-planned, state-run, economy. Which usually sucks. The problem with a "free-market" toolkit is that you eventually wind up with predatory monopolistic crap. Which usually sucks.

The solution seems to be in the middle.

[bluedigger]

9. They really have no choice, the poor dears.

As their costs increase, they HAVE to raise fees in order to exceed last year's record profits. It will never end, until they own everything, you see. It's not their fault - they are as much a victim of capitalism as the rest of us. We should all feel bad for them.:cry:

[jwirr]

10. I use cash and money orders. I am done with these poor victims of

Rule of Law.

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

12. It's that, or lower the executive pay and bonuses

HaHa, banker joke. Like that would happen.

:hi:

[smoochpooch]

14. Sounds like we need MORE regulation, caps on fees etc.

These banks and big business holding the economy and Washington hostage has got to end. Break them all up.

[old mark]

16. "Unbanked"? How sad!...The shitty treatment and excess fees at our bank

led us to joining a credit union about 15 years ago, and we never looked back.

The bank is not your friend, and never was.

mark

[Zoeisright]

19. I remember when ATMs were first started. Banksters said they would cost less

because they didn't have to pay a live person a salary and benefits.

Now, of course, we know that was a fucking lie because banksters will charge customers anything and everything they can get away with.

I've always wanted to ask a bankster about that. When did ATMs start demanding a salary?

[boppers]

22. A serious answer:

ATMs require maintenance, upkeep, data connections, and personnel to load/unload funds, documents, etc. It's cheaper in the same way that a 2 million dollar welding robot is cheaper than 50 humans doing the same job for 20 years... sure, it costs *less*, but it's not free.

The real trick was talking customers, rather than the bank, into paying for it.... that came with wildcat ATMs, where a person could grab 200 bucks from a machine that *wasn't* legally connected to a source bank. Once customers got habituated to that, it was simply a matter of cost shifting, to a consumer who thought that a .25 dollar transaction should cost them five.

[avaistheone1]

21. Cut the BBBillions of dollars of Bank bonusesto the bank executives and each quarter and their

would be no need to charge their customers junk fees.

It's simple.

[Lugnut]

23. Two words.....

Credit union. Dump the TBTF banks and support your local credit union.