August 22, 2004
Banking
More specifically, Banking 'Agencies'.
Why do the banks bother?
I currently bank with a large bank which used to be a building society -- haven't had too many problems with them and they pay a reasonable amount of interest on their current account. Shame their adverts featuring their own staff are really quite so naff.
Locally there has been a small agency branch which I've had some run-ins with in the past. Not being able to put a foreign-issued sterling cheque into my account for instance and having to go into town to the main branch to be able to do that as an example. Their latest wheeze is to put a notice on the door which reads (and I'm paraphrasing)...
NOTICE TO ALL CURRENT ACCOUNT HOLDERS
Please note that all withdrawals and deposits totalling less than £300 must now be done using the ATM at the front of the branch. The staff have been instructed not to serve you if you want a withdrawal or deposit of less than £300.
Thank you.
You're thanking me for what exactly? I tend not to go to the counter for cash anyway, preferring the ATM. For deposits however, I much prefer to go to the counter simply because it takes one less working day for the money to go into my account if I do. My bank has managed to come up with another way of denying me access to and interest on my own money! Why am I surprised? :-/
This would appear to be yet another example of banks cutting corners to line their own pockets... Honestly, sometimes I feel like I would be better off just sticking what cash I do have under the mattress!
At least it's not as bad as the USA or Canada yet where they pay for everything. Want a new chequebook? That'll be $5 please. Want to have more than 10 transactions a month out of your current account? That'll be 50¢ a transaction. It's going in the same direction though unfortunately.
Do you still have a local bank branch or has it been closed to "provide better service to customers"? If you're in the USA or Canada does your bank charge user fees? If not, tell me who they are!
As we're going to be emigrating to Canada in the reasonably near future it would be useful to find out if there are any banks over there that offer fee-free banking in BC or AB.
No banks that I know off offer fee free banking unless you have some kind of deposit and you are certainly right about fees for everything. Every time I turn around there's a new fee for something over here. This does explain their high earnings every year and it's a good investment to add to ones portfolio. However, I've been interested in ING Direct for sometime and have been checking them out. They have no fees like the others and you can get at your money. The part I don't like is that I think you have to wait three days to get it back. This is why I haven't jumped yet.
Posted by: Kodger at August 23, 2004 2:57 AM...that was the other thing, does my bank charge a fee to access this account online? I know there's a feature on my account where I can look at my other banks accounts.
Posted by: Kodger at August 23, 2004 3:07 AMIt's all swings and roundabouts. As Beth has pointed out when I've grumbled about the Royal Bank charging a 'service fee' for our Canadian account even when nothing went in or out of the account, the British banks make money in other ways, specifically for the three to four days when your money is in limbo whilst a cheque 'clears'. There is no technical reason why it should take so long now as it's all an instantaneous electronic transfer, however the banks make excuses about checking and validation, in reality it means that they sit on your money for that little bit longer!
Posted by: Richard at August 29, 2004 4:45 PMI can only speak for the Royal Bank - we use it and have not paid much in the way of fees now ... we pay a monthly fee on our checking account and as we seldom write checks we don't have fees above that so we have a consistant fee of only $11. We only make withdrawals from our bank (there are Royal banking machines - if we go to another banks ATM we have to pay a fee, so we don't ever do that.).
Posted by: Desiree at September 22, 2004 5:34 AMoh... further to that comment --- I do a fair bit of online banking - paying bills online and there is no fee for that.
Posted by: Desiree at September 22, 2004 5:36 AM