Bank of America revamping its checking accounts and increasing fees

Bank of America is revamping its checking accounts and will also increase the fees. The changes are already being brought in and the traditional checking accounts would be phased out over July and August. Once the checking account products are phased out more than 530,000 customers from three states would be moved into a new slate of accounts and that includes 170,000 from Massachusetts. It has plans of moving out all its checking customers by the end of next year.

If you wish to know more details you can have a look at the Bank of America checking account page and click on your state. MyAccess which is a very popular checking account will no longer be available. Despite the fact that they added the MyAccess Checking Fees last month, it still wasn’t enough. Some of the new checking accounts are:

Bank of America Essentials Checking Account – This is a very basic checking account and does not include any Bill Pay. It has a small monthly fee of$6 and it cannot be waived off.

Bank of America eBanking Checking Account – This is very similar to the eBanking account that is present now. However, as per the eBanking requirements you will have to sign up for online statements or paperless statements and all transactions such as deposits and withdrawals must be carried out online or through ATMs. If the requirements are not met, then the fee charged would be higher – it would be $12 instead of $8.95.

Bank of America Enhanced Checking Account – This is probably the best replacement for MyAccess checking account. In order to avoid the monthly fee of $15 you should deposit a minimum of $2,000 per month and maintain a daily combined deposit of $5,000 or use the Bank of America credit card once a month at least.

Bank of America Premium Checking Account – This premium checking account is a 4-tiered interest checking account but the interest rate is really low. This is a replacement for the Advantage with Tiered Interest Checking account. The highest rate is presently only 0.10% on $100K balance. It carries a monthly fee of $25 and there are two ways you can have the fee waived – by maintaining a combined balance of $20K in deposit accounts or by having a linked eligible Bank of America mortgage.

Sometime later this month the overdraft fee would also come into effect. The bank would be imposing a $35 fee on customers even if they overdraw by a penny.