Banks Roll Out New Check, Card Fees

MidnightVoice — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 19:54:41 GMT

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Banks-Roll-Out-New-Check-Card-wallstreet-3274874484.html?x=0&.v=3

The nation's banks will be bombarding customers with new fees and products in 2010 as they try to replace more than $50 billion in revenue wiped out by new rules that clamp down on certain business practices.

So far, the changes are mostly concentrated in checking accounts and credit cards. In addition to attaching new fees to old products, banks are introducing new types of accounts that they hope will reel in new customers and reduce their funding costs.

For plastic, the new rules go into effect in February as part of the Credit Card Act of 2009. The rules will limit some interest-rate increases, require more disclosure to customers and prohibit banks from raising interest rates on current balances unless a customer is at least 60 days behind in a payment.

Credit-card issuers collected $22.9 billion in penalty fees—such as those assessed for late payments—in 2009, up from $19 billion in 2008, said , who runs a credit-card consulting firm in Thousand Oaks, Calif.

Credit-card companies already have been racing to slip new fees and practices into customer contracts ahead of the law. Issuers are closing accounts, switching cards with fixed interest rates to variable rates and introducing cards that have an annual fee.

Re: Banks Roll Out New Check, Card Fees

MattH — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 21:42:29 GMT

MidnightVoice wrote:

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Banks-Roll-Out-New-Check-Card-wallstreet-3274874484.html?x=0&.v=3

The nation's banks will be bombarding customers with new fees and products in 2010 as they try to replace more than $50 billion in revenue wiped out by new rules that clamp down on certain business practices.
...
Credit-card companies already have been racing to slip new fees and practices into customer contracts ahead of the law. Issuers are closing accounts, switching cards with fixed interest rates to variable rates and introducing cards that have an annual fee.

My heart bleeds for the bankers, who apparently have failed to grasp this quote:

There has grown in the minds of certain groups in this country the idea that just because a man or corporation has made a profit out of the public for a number of years, the government and the courts are charged with guaranteeing such profit in the future, even in the face of changing circumstances and contrary to public interest. This strange doctrine is supported by neither statue or common law. Neither corporations or individuals have the right to come into court and ask that the clock of history be stopped, or turned back.

-Robert A. Heinlein

I regard any business model that fundamentally depends upon customers failure to read the fine print as contemptible. I also dislike the increasing trend where all sorts of companies are tacking on charges beyond the quoted price for stuff that used to be considered part of the cost of doing business (any day now I expect to see grocery stores adding a fee to cover their HVAC or whatever).

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Banks Roll Out New Check, Card Fees

Re: Banks Roll Out New Check, Card Fees