Monday, September 27, 2010

Bank Fee Whac-a-Mole: New Charges Hit Accounts

Since the CARD act, and new consumer protection laws have been put in to place, you may have noticed some mysterious new fees appearing on your bank statement. You are not alone, almost every major financial institution has added new fees to make up for losses in revenue.

To assist consumers, CNN Money.com put t together a bank-by-bank description of the new charges you can expect. You can find an excerpt below or check out the full post here.

"It's like you've got a sinking boat, where you plug one hole and another one springs up," said Curtis Arnold, founder of CreditRatings.com. "You can shut down one egregious fee, but that doesn't mean other fees aren't just going to start popping up elsewhere."

Here's a bank-by-bank look of what to expect.

Bank of America: Just last week, Bank of America said it plans to raise minimum balance requirements over the next 12 months and charge a monthly account fee for customers who can't maintain those balances.

"We currently estimate over time through these and other items we are working on that we will have the ability to offset a substantial majority of the revenue from the various regulatory changes," Bank of America (BAC, Fortune 500) CEO Brian Moynihan said in a presentation to investors last week.

Customers enrolled in the lender's new eBanking checking account will be charged $8.95 per month if they opt to receive paper statements and visit tellers instead of banking online. Since the launch of eBanking in August, nearly half of all new checking accounts fall into this category.

Earlier this year, annual fees ranging from $29 to $99 were applied to a variety of Bank of America credit card accounts.

Continue reading at CNN Money.com…