Banks New Fees

Banks are struggling to replace lost fee revenue. About 45 percent of U.S. customers’ checking accounts are free, compared with about 65 percent last year, with an average monthly fee on non-interest-bearing accounts of $4.37 a month, according to a study released in September by Bankrate.Bank of America next year plans to start charging some debit-card users a monthly fee of $5 for making purchases with their cards. Wells Fargo plans to test a $3 monthly debit-card usage fee among certain customers starting Oct. 14. JPMorgan began testing a $3 monthly fee for certain customers with debit cards in two states in February.

Citigroup plans to raise monthly fees on its Basic Checking accounts to $10 from $8, which customers may avoid by maintaining a $1,500 minimum balance combined in their checking and savings accounts or by making certain transactions.

Since Oct. 1, banks may receive no more than 21 cents per transaction plus 5 basis points of the purchase price for debit- card transactions, according to a rule issued by the Federal Reserve in June.

That rule will cost the industry about $6.6 billion annually in lost revenue and comes on top of about $5.6 billion in yearly losses from rules that took effect last year prohibiting the companies from automatically enrolling customers in overdraft-protection programs, said Beth Robertson, director of payments research for Javelin Strategy & Research, a market- research firm.

“It’s driving banks to try to move more customers into using credit more regularly,” Robertson said of the debit-fee cap. “It’s more profitable for them.”