CNN Money recently reported that three of the nation’s largest banks (JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and Wells Fargo) collected more than $6.4 billion in ATM and overdraft fees from customers last year. In fact, when JPMorgan raised their ATM fees by 50 cents at the end of 2015, they increased ATM fee revenue by 22 percent in 2016. Not surprisingly, consumers are not happy about it.
But, megabanks have no plans to ease up on fees. The three banks mentioned above collected almost $300 million more in fees last year than the previous year, and it’s reasonable to expect an increase in fees this year.
According to the 2016 Kasasa Explores survey, an April 2016 study, commissioned by Kasasa and conducted online by Harris Poll among over 2,000 U.S. adults, the vast majority of consumers (96%) say ‘no fees banking’ is important when choosing a financial institution for their everyday banking needs.
Additionally, customers whose primary checking account is at a megabank are twice as likely as those whose primary checking is at a local community bank/credit union to feel scammed by fees their bank charges (36% vs. 14%), and 23 percent of customers with a primary checking account at a megabank say more or higher fees are a disadvantage of their primary bank over other banks, according to findings from Kasasa’s 2015 Consumer Banking Insights (CBI) Study.
This is all good news for credit unions.
