Heads Up: Wells Fargo Checking Fee Change

[Bignate603]

Um yeah, I don't need to pay bank fees because they are already investing and using my money. Do you even know what a bank is?

You beat me to it. The marketplace is also in effect: If you want depositors, you compete for them... i.e. free checking. It gets people in the door and a bank can make money in many other ways.

I had my personal accounts at WF and my business at Wachovia, after the merge, every time I walked in the door they were trying to sell me another 'banking product,' one dumbass even opened a savings account 'for me' that was deducting the rounded up dollar amount of every transaction I made on my debit card. I went in and closed all of my accounts save one (checking, so I can make my house payment to WF) and am done with WF.

I found a nice, locally owned bank that isn't very frilly, but they know my name and what I do. And they have cookies.

That's all well and good, but it actually costs the bank money to maintain an account. They need to mail statements, keep ATMs stocked, staff call centers, provide services, etc. The cost to maintain an account with $1,000 in it isn't that much lower than an account with $100,000 in it. For accounts with low balances (especially with today's low interest rates on loans) the cost to maintain it can easily be larger than the amount the bank can make off it.

In essence, the banks charge these fees on accounts with low balances because they don't want them. They're money losers. If there was money to be made of these low balance accounts you would see banks fighting for their business, not scaring them off with high fees.

 

[Charlie98]

That's all well and good, but it actually costs the bank money to maintain an account. They need to mail statements, keep ATMs stocked, staff call centers, provide services, etc. The cost to maintain an account with $1,000 in it isn't that much lower than an account with $100,000 in it. For accounts with low balances (especially with today's low interest rates on loans) the cost to maintain it can easily be larger than the amount the bank can make off it.

In essence, the banks charge these fees on accounts with low balances because they don't want them. They're money losers. If there was money to be made of these low balance accounts you would see banks fighting for their business, not scaring them off with high fees.

I'm not a banking guy, I'm a pool guy... but I'll bet the ratio of small accounts vs big accounts is way out of whack. For every one of us that works not to pay a monthly service fee or ATM charge, there are probably 5 or 10 that either don't care or don't know that they are even paying it, or that there are banks that don't charge them.

Bank accounts are like an insurance pool in that all deposits, even tiny ones, add to the whole pie.