Bank of America Imposing New Bank Fees on Checking Accounts

Bank of America introduced new fees to its clients’ checking accounts during the last two quarters of this year. This time, it is adding new fees again. There are now new sets of laws in banks where a minimum requirement is made in relation to balance to be maintained, etc… The requirements become the basis on whether the same banks will include monthly charges in customers’ checking accounts. The charges will hurt, as laws put them at an amount of $30 per month.

Banks want to take advantage of the collection of fees from customers who often go below the minimum balance needed to be maintained in their checking accounts. Recognizing a lot of customers who overspend and withdraw money unaware of when they’re actually hitting below minimum, the banks have decided to impose fees.

When customers, on the other hand, use their other bank account resources to make up for the lost checking account minimum amount, the banks are preemptive enough to have charges in place for secondary sources. In any way, the banks are still in the position and it is in fact within their capacity to charge for overdraft protection once consumers either go below the minimum maintaining balance or do not have sufficient funds in secondary sources. HSBC and wells Fargo have emphasized on these rules.

Consumer Federation of America director of financial services Jean Ann Fox said that payments on these aspects of the checking account have already been made Americans even before. The only difference, she says, is that now the payment becomes more transparent. Fox stresses that the good thing about the new laws is that they already present to the customers what they need to be paying for should they fail to follow some rules in place.

For her, it is in fact only now that the banks themselves make an effort to explicitly inform their customers about the new overdraft rules, etc… Fox claims that the new bank laws served the impetus for banks to assume transparency at all times with their customers in mind. According to her, banks never really made public what they do about checking accounts going below minimum balance. Now that the government has called for information on the part of the customers, the banks acceded by making clear such new rules—and new fees—to their customers. With this, customers are then expected to closely look after their checking accounts.