Rise in checking account fee in Bank of America
Bank of America plans on raising the account fee on its basic checking account and there would be a 34% hike in their monthly service charges beginning next month. As of now, Bank of America has been charging $12 per month, which is up from about $8.95 per month on the MyAccess account.
Obviously, the $8.95 per month that was charged every month was not bringing in sufficient revenue for the bank and was not enough to offset the loss of revenue due to the tough regulations that were brought in recently. In fact, Bank of America’s plans to return the $410 million to its customers (excessive debit card overcharge fees) had just been approved by the court yesterday. Bank of America is part of the class action lawsuit that was filed along with the other banks, and on its part will return $410 million to its customers. The rest of the banks that are in the suit are yet to come to a settlement.
There are some options left for you if the increase from $8.95 to $12 is the final tipping point. The monthly fee is waived off by Bank of America if you make a minimum of one direct deposit every month into your account. However, even the bar for that has just been raised. Earlier on, the direct deposit could be done for any amount. But as per the new requirement the monthly direct deposit will have to be at least $250. If you maintain an average balance of around $1,500 you may be able to steer clear of the monthly charge which comes to $12.
If that is not possible or if you have had enough to do with the various fees, then it may be time to take a look at the credit unions. As per ones of the studies that involved the checking account plans in credit unions, at least 76% of credit unions had in fact offered free checking without any strings attached. Though the results of the 2011 bank survey are yet to be released, during last year the no strings attached free checking accounts were only offered by 65% of them. The numbers are likely to be lowered this year. In all likelihood, Credit Unions may offer free checking as they are non-profits and they have lesser incentives or shareholder pressure to keep earning profits.
In the 2011 survey, Bank of America has been rated 28th out of 30 of the largest banks and falls into the ‘weak’ category.
