Date: Mon, 2 Jul 2001 21:42:02 -0700 From: "Crist J. Clark" <cristjc@earthlink.net> To: Iain Templeton <iain@research.canon.com.au> Cc: Greg Lehey <grog@FreeBSD.ORG>, freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: US checking accounts for non-US residents Message-ID: <20010702214202.D312@blossom.cjclark.org> In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.4.10.10107030952480.13813-100000@blow.research.canon.com.au>; from iain@research.canon.com.au on Tue, Jul 03, 2001 at 10:19:21AM %2B1000 References: <20010701205343.A269@sydney.worldwide.lemis.com> <Pine.LNX.4.10.10107030952480.13813-100000@blow.research.canon.com.au>
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On Tue, Jul 03, 2001 at 10:19:21AM +1000, Iain Templeton wrote: > On Sun, 1 Jul 2001, Greg Lehey wrote: > > > > Yes, my bank recently upped the account maintenance fee to $2000, that > > > is just wrong. > > > > Hmm. I think you mean: > > > > s/account maintenance fee/minimum balance/ > > s/my bank/ANZ/ > > > > Agreed, that pisses me off too. > > > Yes, right on all three counts. I don't have a problem maintaining $2k, > but I can imagine many people who are far worse off than me having > trouble. Two years ago when I was a student (I almost wrote stupid > again, I'm getting good at that little slip :-) I doubt that I had my > balance above $2k for more than a couple of months (and that was only > after vacation employment). Banks often have special deals for college kids and younger. Not that banks are such nice institutions, but they'd like to keep you when you grow up and invest more money in them and pay more fees. They count on the next point below. Oh, and then there's odd cases like where I went to school, Maryland. By law, banks cannot charge fees to people below a certain age. It was twenty or twenty-one I think. They still scrammbled to sign up students almost as much as the credit card companies. > > > We have basically 5 banks in Australia, and a number of other smaller > > > groups who provide banking services (some of them are credit unions, > > > others are overseas banks). Generally the big 4 (+1) tend to have the > > > highest fees. > > > > And they're rising all the time. > > > And nobody seems to be trying to do anything about it. $1.50 here and there is below the threashold where most people notice it. Hopefully, even with 5 banks, the one that offers low, or ideally, no fees will be able to pull business from the others. However, for $4.50 or $6 a month, most people would find the rather tedious task of finding a new bank, signing lots of papers, etc. not worth the effort. There is no real incentive for one bank to lower fees. > > >> Anyway, the reason I object to this fee is that it is unfair and > > >> ridiculous. When you deposit money in a bank, the bank takes your > > >> money, invests it, and makes more money from it. They have a lot > > >> of nerve to charge you a fee for depositing less than $500 (or any > > >> amount). > > > > > > I think the one I find the hardest to comprehend is the service fees. If > > > I make more than 6 electronic (ie Internet, phone, EFTPOS, ATM) > > > transactions a month, I get charge $1.50 per excess transaction. > > > > > > I only get 2 over the counter transactions as well. Not that I need > > > them. > > > > Hmm. I'm beginning to wonder if this is ANZ after all. I hope not. > > > It is. > > > > It's funny really, the banks make barely anything out of personal > > > banking, yet charge the highest fees. It looks as if they are > > > forcing the individual business units to make the highest profits, > > > rather than perhaps spreading things out across the entire business. > > > > A while back in Germany I was left with the distinct impression that > > the commercial banks were no longer interested in individual > > accounts. Maybe the same thing is happening in Australia. > > > I suspect so. I'm just surprised that it is soo high. I honestly think > that if it costs them $1.50 for every extra transaction, then there is > something seriously wrong with their transaction system. ATMs are not proving to be the money savers banks thought they would be. Now a days (in the US anyway), banks are typically open with teller service _longer_ hours than they were a decade or two ago. PLUS, people expect 24-hour ATM, phone, and on-line banking on top of that. Despite our complaining, banks offer a _lot_ more services than they did in the past. The customers have and always will have to pay for the services whether it be in fees or reduced returns on investments. Some of it is kind of like software market, just pile on more and more silly features that very few people use as an excuse to charge more and more for the product. Not that I don't find the idea that when I use another bank's ATM machine I have to pay $1.50 service charge to the bank who owns the ATM, _plus_ another $1.50 to my bank for the honor of getting my money from someone else's machine a bit too much. -- Crist J. Clark cjclark@alum.mit.edu To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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