I do not dispute that my bank has given me excellent service in the past, that it wants to continue to give me a good service but to do this it now feels that it needs to start charging me a monthly fee of £ 10 per account to do so. I can avoid these charges by guaranteeing that I will deposit a certain sum each month into the accounts or I could avoid the charges by purchasing an additional product which is more expensive than £ 10. I can understand their excellent argument rationally but on the other hand why would I want to buy a product that is going to be of no use to me at all : free (?) annual travel insurance, instant mobile balance reports, special offers on hotels and restaurants etc. A point that strikes me is that although I have made full use of my consumer powers in the past, they have had a sizeable salary paid in over a vast 15 years and they have earnt interest on that money while it shifted in and out and had the 4 day timelapse in which time they probably invested it and got paid interest, I see it as a success. The success surely must be that I have come up in some warning system, code red, as costing them money, as I am spending little and acting outside the norm.
So I am going to be forced to downshift the amounts of accounts I have, as it appears that the rules apply to many banks now, and put many of my eggs in one basket ( a point I do not usually agree with as diversifying has its benefits), however this bank states simply that my accounts no longer are viable to them and that they can do without my 20 year custom. Am I sad about that, not really, just deeply disappointed that in a society where generally debt is a problem and saving non existent that people who do not go into debt and hence do not make the bank rich, should be pushed out. What message are they giving us here?
So I am going to be forced to downshift the amounts of accounts I have, as it appears that the rules apply to many banks now, and put many of my eggs in one basket ( a point I do not usually agree with as diversifying has its benefits), however this bank states simply that my accounts no longer are viable to them and that they can do without my 20 year custom. Am I sad about that, not really, just deeply disappointed that in a society where generally debt is a problem and saving non existent that people who do not go into debt and hence do not make the bank rich, should be pushed out. What message are they giving us here?
3 comments:
It's similar here in Australia. Over the past decade we've gone from being 'customers' who they service to being 'clients' who they charge.
We receive discounts on our everyday account fees because our home mortgage is with the same bank, but otherwise the fees can be quite high.
Do you have access to a community-style bank? Often their fees are more moderate.
The banks fight over your business here in the US. They give free gifts and money to open accounts. I get free online banking,free checking account - they do charge for things like transfering money from other countries.
You can get around this particular bank now through opening their savings account and putting in £5.
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