Since September 2009 banks have taken the uncharacteristic step of reducing or eliminating many of their monthly account fees.  This was in response to business pressure because they were losing business to zero fee account providers such as ING and Suncorp and to Cash management Trust providers such as Macquarie and Colonial.

The abolition of overdrawn account fees by the NAB and significant reduction by others, should benefit many customers.  What time will tell, is whether customers will be able to overdraw an account in future without any prior arrangements.  This could cause some embarrassment and that may, for some, outweigh the reduction in fees.

If you were accustomed to overdrawing your account, then it is quite probable that in the future that ‘service’ will no longer be available.

You need to be alert to the fine print– for example although the ANZ overdrawn fee has reduced from $35 to $6, it will be charged daily rather than just once.

Many Credit Unions and Building Societies have offered better deals on fees for many years and still have ‘periods of grace’ within to fix errors.

It seems that banks have taken the view that all customers would prefer to pay no fees rather than receive interest and that consumers don’t care about the net result.  There was a time when pensioners particularly, could avoid bank fees and increase their pension, by leaving large amounts in cheque accounts no paying interest.  Banks were the winners, pensioners the losers.

It is still important to consider the interest earned options for surplus funds and the net result, with each banking facility.