Free checking accounts may no longer be available

If you want a free checking account, it is better to shop around state the analysts. They claim that the banks nationwide are all in the process of adjusting their fees and banking charges in a response to the Federal Legislation that is likely to come into effect from next month. It aims at reducing the charges that banks and financial institutions take on the debit card transactions.

Moebs Services, which is an Illinois-based bank data consultant, states that there are fewer banks and credit unions in the US that offer free checking accounts without the rest of the requirements such as keeping a minimum balance etc. According to a survey conducted by Moebs last August, it has been found that almost 73% of the financial institutions had a free option when compared to 83.5% last year.

Mike Moebs, who is the CEO of the company, has stated that the decline had been much greater among the biggest institutions. According to a recent survey that was released in March it has been found that only about 50% of the huge banks with public trading had offered free checking accounts.

According to Moebs, credit unions and community banks are the best bets if you are looking for free checking because their operational costs are much lower than the rest of the major banks. Even the monthly maintenance fee could be avoided by the consumer. Consumers are advised to take advantage of the breaks that most of these banks offer on the checking accounts.

Just last month, Bank of America had raised the monthly maintenance fee on its MyAccess checking accounts to $12 while it was $8.95 earlier. However, this fee is generally waived off if the account holder does any of the following such as maintaining an average daily balance of $1,500 or more than that, or if they make a direct deposit of around $250 per month, or links it to the other investment or savings accounts that have a minimum daily balance of at least $2,000.

The other free checking account is from Frost Bank and it has the online bill payment facility which is not always offered on the rest of the least expensive accounts of the other banks.

But despite that, free checking is on its way out. Among five of the biggest Tarrant County banks, the completely free account is only offered by Frost. But the spokeswoman at Frost also stated that they would be evaluating their checking accounts regularly.