Unsurprisingly, Checking Charges Going Up Again

By Cornelius Nunev


MoneyRate releases a survey about every few months about checking charges and other bank fees and so on. Give credit where it's due, banks are constant, in that the fees are increasing again.

Anticipated bank fee increases

Whenever possible, banks will add more charges. Last year, Bank of America tried to charge a $5 monthly debit card fee, which ended in disaster. Banking institutions are always attempting to see what they can get away with when it comes to charging extra fees.

However, if anything, banks could be credited for consistency. Last year, banking account fees such as checking account charges and so on went through several rounds of raises. Many rounds of bank fee increases have been noted already this year. A newly released survey by MoneyRate, according to Forbes, has revealed that checking fees and other bank charges, are indeed trending upward again this year.

Overdraft charges higher

MoneyRate releases the survey every six months, using data from more than 100 banking institutions, according to CNN, such as the 50 largest banks. This edition of the survey found that, among other charges which were raised, the minimum opening balance reached an average of $408.76, according to Forbes, up from $391.41 in the previous survey.

Overdraft fees, which some people keep away from by getting payday loans and are often a matter of frequent criticism of banks, increased slightly from $29.23 to $29.83.

The largest increase was in the minimum balance required to keep away from account charges, which shot up more than $850 to $4,446.57, a 24 percent increase from the previous survey, when it was $3,590.83.

Larger banking institutions were charging more charges than smaller ones, which is to be anticipated. The average large bank charged $13.88 in account fees while medium and small banks saw an average of $11.87 and $9.88. Average monthly service fees increased from $11.28 to $12.08. The annual cost averages $145, according to CNN, considering the monthly fees.

ATM fees barely increased, as non-customer ATM use went up by three cents, to $2.40, but out-of-network ATM went up 18 cents to $1.29.

Find the best free checking

Overall, free checking is available at 35 percent of banks in the survey, compared to 39 percent last year. Again, it split by bank size, as only 21 percent of big banks offer free checking, compared to 46 percent of small banks.

Credit unions are the best option for getting accounts with no checking charges still. About 76 percent of credit unions in a Bankrate survey offered free checking, which has now dropped to 72 percent of the nation's largest credit unions, according to the Chicago Tribune. That is still much better than banks.




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