Occupy Jax is coming...

[Non-RedNeck Westsider]

Is this sarcasm?  It's hard to tell.

I'm afraid not.  This was, though.....

I found 15 minutes to save 15% on my car insurance so I'm pretty sure I could spend a few hours to save my retirement fund if needed.

[BridgeTroll]

Someone must have a list of these shadowy corporatists... <not sarcasm>

[Non-RedNeck Westsider]

Still not worth your precious time to reconsider who you bank with, Faye?

Citi announces new fees on checking accounts
Tuesday October 4, 2011, 8:28 pm EDT

The fees keep coming. Citi is the latest big bank to slap customers with a round of fee hikes. This time, on its checking accounts.

Starting in December, customers who hold its mid-level Citibank Account will be charged $20 a month if they fail to maintain a minimum balance of $15,000 in their combined accounts. Previously, account holders had to carry a minimum balance of $6,000.

At the same time, customers who have the bank's EZ Checking account will start being charged $15 a month if they don't carry a minimum balance of $6,000. Citi (C) says it is phasing out the EZ Checking package, which currently carries no monthly fee, and is instead offering customers either the Citibank Account or its Basic Banking account, which also carries a fee.

Last month, Citi said it is hiking the fee on its Basic Banking account from $8 to $10. Customers will be able to avoid paying the $10 fee by either maintaining a minimum balance of $1,500 or by making one direct deposit and one automatic online payment through their checking account each month, said Citi.

Currently, account holders must make five online transactions per month in order to avoid paying the fee and there is no minimum balance requirement.

Citi's fee hikes come just days after Bank of America announced it would charge a $5 fee for debit card purchases. Wells Fargo, JPMorgan Chase, Sun Trust and Regions Financial have all also rolled out similar fees in select markets in recent weeks.

9 most annoying bank fees

"The regulatory environment has changed a great deal -- particularly with the Durbin Amendment -- and we're seeing the results of that now," said Claes Bell, banking reporter with Bankrate.com. Going forward, "we're going to see more large national banks announce fees."

With the new regulation that caps how much revenue banks can get from the swipe fees they collect from merchants, banks must look for other ways to cover that lost income, explained Nessa Feddis, vice president and senior counsel of the American Bankers Association.

"We don't expect to pay nothing to ride the train, it's the same thing with a checking account," she said.

Citibank said it chose not to charge a debit card fee because its customers did not want it. "There's a reason why we structured it this way," said Catherine Pulley, spokeswoman for Citi. There are also no hidden fees, Pulley added, and customers will benefit from free online bill pay and free access to non-Citi ATM machines.

Bank accounts: Get a fair shake, not a shakedown

While the majority of checking accounts were free last year, less than half now come without a price tag, according to a recent study from bank-comparison site Bankrate, which looked at 243 interest and 238 non-interest accounts.

Like Citi's new offerings, 92% of checking accounts have fee waivers, meaning that if you can meet certain financially requirements, most checking accounts are -- or could become -- free.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Citi-announces-new-fees-on-cnnm-215283525.html?x=0

[Non-RedNeck Westsider]

Not on the following list:  Matresses, Buried Jars and Credit Unions, hmmmmm.....

[coredumped]

Wow great chart! If it went back further you can see Barnett, which is when I jumped ship.

If these people would close their bank accounts and stop shopping at walmart, they would hit the corporations where it hurts the most-their wallet.

[BridgeTroll]

Join a Credit Union.  I have never been with a Bank and never will...

[avs]

if someone decides they want to charge me $5 to use a debit card, I can just change to a bank or credit union that does not do that

We actually went today and closed our acct with Wells because we were sick of the way they ran their bank (tons of undisclosed fees, lost cash deposits, comingled my personal and biz accts) and opened an acct at Regions - the teller at Regions said it won't be long before ALL banks and credit unions are emposing a fee for using a debit card/using your own money - the question for the consumer will just be whose fee is less.  So basically it doesn't matter who you are banking with - they are all going to be charging you to use your money at some point in the near future.  Yeah corporate America (sarcasm)

I am all for the protests - we need to support local business and get rid of global economies which are really turning all of us into 3rd world countries.  The only way to really do this though is to hit em where it hurts em - stop giving them your money.  stop shopping at corporate businesses and give your money to locally owned businesses.  its totally possible

[fsujax]

i really miss Jacksonville being the banking capital of Florida....ahhhh the days of Barnett!

[Sigma]

Every time we turn around, there is someone sticking it to us.

Lets just stop being consumers because our government won't protect us from corporatist abuse.

The government won't protect you Faye because the government is causing it.  Thank Dick Durbin for debit card fees increasing. 

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704073804576023514056278814.html#printMode

[BridgeTroll]

Every time we turn around, there is someone sticking it to us.

Lets just stop being consumers because our government won't protect us from corporatist abuse.

The government won't protect you Faye because the government is causing it.  Thank Dick Durbin for debit card fees increasing. 

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704073804576023514056278814.html#printMode

Thank you Sigma!

[FayeforCure]

Every time we turn around, there is someone sticking it to us.

Lets just stop being consumers because our government won't protect us from corporatist abuse.

The government won't protect you Faye because the government is causing it.  Thank Dick Durbin for debit card fees increasing. 

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704073804576023514056278814.html#printMode

Corporatists LOVE to blame the government.........it keeps the focus off of themselves.

The reality is that we need better government...........government that isn't run by the corporatists who then deflect blame for their atrocious actions back onto the government...........see the pattern yet.

If we really had government of the people, by the people, for the people we would be protected from corporatist abuse.

What Republicans want to do is KILL government. First by gutting regulations, then by cutting the regulators.

A great example was how HAMP was set up to fail, because it does nothing to reign in corporatist abuse.

The whole notion of "self-regulation" was created by the corporatists. Or the sense that "free market" forces work to self-regulate (when Adam Smith clearly stated that those forces only work efficiently in small markets), is such a lie.

All of this was mass propaganda for decades.

[BridgeTroll]

Since you wont click the link... Faye... I did it for you...

BUSINESSDECEMBER 16, 2010.Fed's New Debit-Card Fee Rules Hit Hard; Issuers Howl

By VICTORIA MCGRANE, DAN FITZPATRICK And RANDALL SMITH

A set of new debit-card restrictions proposed by the Federal Reserve on Thursday was more aggressive than investors feared, potentially causing billions of dollars in lost revenue for U.S. banks and stiffening competition for credit-card providers.

The new restrictions, most of which won't be made final until April 21, aim to cap the amount of money that debit-card issuers can charge merchants for so-called swipe fees. Banks would face a seven-to-12-cent-per-transaction cap on the interchange fees under either of the two proposals unveiled Thursday. That represents as much as an 84% drop from the current average of 44 cents. Analysts had been expecting a drop of up to 60%.

"Nobody expected it to be this draconian," said David Robertson, publisher of credit-card industry newsletter the Nilson Report. One bank executive said the cut was larger than the company's worst-case scenario. Banks, he said, will "push back."

Stocks of debit-card processors and banks that issue cards got hit. MasterCard Inc. plunged $25.73, or 10%, to $223.49. Visa Inc. tumbled $9.75, or 13%, to $67.19.

The card companies don't actually collect swipe fees themselves, but the new proposed rules would loosen their control over the process and allow merchants to choose rival payment networks. Some analysts say banks will try to pass on some of their lost revenue by reducing what they pay the credit-card networks.

MasterCard general counsel Noah Hanft said, "This type of price control is misguided and anticompetitive, and in the end is harmful to consumers." A Visa spokesman declined to comment on the provisions of the proposed rules.

Share prices of big banks which receive debit-interchange revenues took milder trims because their revenues are more diversified. Bank of America Corp. fell 35 cents just after the Fed proposals became public but still finished up 23 cents, or 1.87%, to $12.52.

Still, the banks most affected by the proposed rules include Bank of America and Wells Fargo & Co., both of which derive 2.5% of their revenues from debit interchange revenue. Bank of America took a $10 billion charge during the third quarter to account for drop in the value of its cards business and predicted an annual decline of as much as $2.3 billion. A Bank of America spokesman said the company can't yet comment on specific implications.

A Wells Fargo spokeswoman said the company is reviewing the rules and will provide comment to the Fed. "At this point, it's premature to speculate on the financial impact," she said.

For consumers, the proposed rules could allow merchants to cut prices, reflecting their reduced costs. A $100 transaction today, for example, means merchants currently pay banks as much as $1.30 in debit interchange fees, according to figures provided by the Nilson Report. Under the proposals, the merchant would pay no more than 12 cents, said David Balto, a fellow with the left-leaning Center for American Progress.

That, he said, goes into the consumer's pocket. "That's pretty simple, you're saving a buck," he said.

But the Fed staff members acknowledged that banks may increase monthly checking-account fees and minimum balance requirements or make debit-card reward programs less appealing.

Small banks also decried the Fed proposal, even though the law technically exempts financial institutions with less than $10 billion in assets from the restrictions on fees.

Small banks and credit unions say that any measure to reduce big banks' fees would make it harder for them to compete with the large banks, and would force them to charge lower fees as well.

The rules "essentially relieve retailers of paying their fair share for a card payments system that offers them tremendous benefits," Ed Yingling, president and chief executive of the American Bankers Association, said in a statement. He added that the Fed's proposal was a "bad deal for consumers."

If implemented in their current state, the draft rules are a victory for merchants who for years tried to persuade legislators to reduce interchange fees, contending that banks are charging them too much for debit cards that are essentially no different than cash or checks. The Fed's proposal suggests it was sensitive to that argument.

But staffers also cautioned that its recommendations were limited by the law. Fed governor Kevin Warsh said he hoped the board could find a more "more pro-competitive" alternative to setting prices.

Fed officials delayed putting forth specific recommendations on key issues, instead proposing a series of alternatives and soliciting feedback.

"The proposal today is one that deserves particularly careful attention from the Board, in light of debit cards' increasingly important role in the U.S. payments system," Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said in his opening statement.

The debit-fee provision, championed by Sen. Richard Durbin (D., Ill.) and included in the Dodd-Frank financial-overhaul legislation, has been a concern for the banking industry, which has waged a lobbying campaign at the Fed in the months preceding Thursday's proposal.

In October, regional bank TCF Financial Corp., one of the nation's biggest issuers of debit cards, sued the Federal Reserve to block the new fee limits. A federal judge has scheduled a hearing for April 4 on the Wayzata, Minn., bank's request for a preliminary injunction against the new debit-card rules, TCF officials said.

Meanwhile, a bipartisan group of 13 senators wrote to Mr. Bernanke in the last week expressing concerns with the provision, specifically that "retailers likely to be affected by the provision make no mention of any benefits to consumers." Many experts predict that consumers will be hit with higher bank fees as a result of the rules, the senators wrote.

The Fed outlined two scenarios Thursday. Under one plan, card-issuing banks could use a formula to determine the maximum amount of the interchange fee that it would collect, based on certain processing costs. The Fed would set a "safe harbor" standard at seven cents per transaction. If a bank chose not to accept the seven cents, however, it could recover any costs in excess of the safe-harbor level up to the 12-cents-per-transaction cap.

The second alternative would just set a cap at 12 cents without any safe harbor. Under the staff proposal, the Fed Board would re-evaluate the cap every two years based on banks' costs.

[FayeforCure]

No worries BT........it's that age-old Republican warning:

Don't bother to regulate anything that could potentially lead to some profit losses, because businesses will stick it to the consumers in a different way. In the end consumers pay no matter what.

Rather, could we just admit that banks make record profits and could absorb some losses from consumer protections without sticking it to us on the other end?

[avs]

^amen

[Non-RedNeck Westsider]

No worries BT........it's that age-old Republican warning:

Don't bother to regulate anything that could potentially lead to some profit losses, because businesses will stick it to the consumers in a different way. In the end consumers pay no matter what.

Rather, could we just admit that banks make record profits and could absorb some losses from consumer protections without sticking it to us on the other end?

So as a business owner, am I not allowed to maximize my profits?  What did we do to offset the fees - we required minimum purchases with debit/credit cards and offered 1%-3% off purchases made in cash.  Gov't intervention wasn't really necessary was it?

Guess what?  I'm still going to require a minimum purchase and remove my cash discount, why?  Because I use the same banking institution that my customers do. 

Thanks gov't.  When's the next bread and cheese line gonna form up?