Live data from Hacker News

The most profitable source of income for banks? Overdraft fees

loannow.com

11–20 of 223 posts

Re: The most profitable source of income for banks? Overdraft fees

#11
I'm not saying this isn't true, but the post is on the blog of a short term loans company who have a vested interest in people believing a short term loan would be preferable to an overdraft fee, and there's no cited report or study that suggests banks make most of their money from fees.

A couple of articles that make me wonder;

http://www.businessinsider.com/chart-of-the-day-how-a-bank-m...

http://www.wsj.com/articles/banks-fee-bonanza-dries-up-14096...

Re: The most profitable source of income for banks? Overdraft fees

#12
About five years ago I worked at Wells Fargo as a teller while in college. During that time Congress passed a law prohibiting debit transactions from going through if there weren't enough funds in the account. Shortly after that we were told to start telling our customers about a new service called Debit Card Overdraft Service which was marketed as a "convenience" for customers when they were in a bind.

When I asked my branch manager about this service in person, he said he was told by his manager that the company was going to lose billions of dollars due to the new law and that this service was meant to alleviate those losses. I filed an ethical complaint since I believed that it violated one of their Team Member Codes of Ethics regarding "encouraging reckless financial behavior". It pissed off my manager, which pissed off his boss, and then I had a round table meeting with them. My manager then claimed that he never said anything about losing money, and that the new service was unrelated to the new laws passed in Congress. Since I couldn't prove he said those things I decided to drop it, but he told me I no longer had to advertise the service.

It still irks me that there was absolutely nothing I could do about the situation. After I quit some of my co workers told me that they were told that the service was used to make up for lost revenue also, but they were afraid of speaking up since they didn't want to lose their jobs. I had less to lose because I was a college student studying CS.

Re: The most profitable source of income for banks? Overdraft fees

#14
post #6

The pain overdraft fees cause poor people is truly hard to comprehend unless you've been there. It's incredibly evil. You've got $16 left for food and then then the Flickr account you forgot to cancel gets charged to your account, putting your balance at -$9. Now you have to pay $35/day until you get enough money to cover the overdraft fees. You end up paying $100+ for a $9 forced loan. The bank could have just decli…

USAA - The United Services Automobile Association?

Re: The most profitable source of income for banks? Overdraft fees

#15

This is a quote from Michael Lewis' The Big Short, I'll never forget it: Obsessing over Household [Finance Corporation], he attended a lunch organized by a big Wall Street firm. The guest speaker was Herb Sandler, the CEO of a giant savings and loan called Golden West Financial Corporation. “Someone asked him if he believed in the free checking model,” recalls Eisman. “And he said, ‘Turn off your tape recorders.’ Eve…

> form of fines for overdrawing their checking accounts.

Why in the world shouldn't you be fined for overdrawing your checking account? A checking account is not a loan, am I wrong in thinking this quote is B.S.?

Re: The most profitable source of income for banks? Overdraft fees

#16
post #14
post #6

The pain overdraft fees cause poor people is truly hard to comprehend unless you've been there. It's incredibly evil. You've got $16 left for food and then then the Flickr account you forgot to cancel gets charged to your account, putting your balance at -$9. Now you have to pay $35/day until you get enough money to cover the overdraft fees. You end up paying $100+ for a $9 forced loan. The bank could have just decli…

USAA - The United Services Automobile Association?

https://www.usaa.com/

Re: The most profitable source of income for banks? Overdraft fees

#17

About five years ago I worked at Wells Fargo as a teller while in college. During that time Congress passed a law prohibiting debit transactions from going through if there weren't enough funds in the account. Shortly after that we were told to start telling our customers about a new service called Debit Card Overdraft Service which was marketed as a "convenience" for customers when they were in a bind. When I asked…

I guess the moral of the story is that ethical complaints should be anonymous?

Re: The most profitable source of income for banks? Overdraft fees

#18
Bank overdraft and NSF fees are definitely odious. It's part of the reason why so many poor people have switched over to prepaid and are opting to pay the $5-$10 monthly fee for those accounts - it comes out to less for many people and at least it's predictable.

These types of fees have been especially egregious in recent years, because the bigger banks have had their traditional revenue sources drastically capped/reduced (interchange & interest spread).

Re: The most profitable source of income for banks? Overdraft fees

#19

This is one of the financial barriers that severely impacts the ability of poor people to amass monetary wealth, but is invisible to the rich. Before they were overdraft fees, they were Non-Sufficient Funds fees for overdrafting, and these NSF fees still exist for those who can't even get the "overdraft loan". > Banks originally offered clients this service as a courtesy. Banks originally opted in at-risk customers.…

A different angle. But probably for the same reason. You kinda wonder why these poor communities don't have community-owned businesses. Crowdfunded works so well, why not in ghettos? It doesn't help when most people don't have any spending money to contribute because they are drained dry by the banks...

That's what credit unions are. You don't have many in the ghetto, because most aren't really communities, which is why they are what they are.

Re: The most profitable source of income for banks? Overdraft fees

#20
post #6

The pain overdraft fees cause poor people is truly hard to comprehend unless you've been there. It's incredibly evil. You've got $16 left for food and then then the Flickr account you forgot to cancel gets charged to your account, putting your balance at -$9. Now you have to pay $35/day until you get enough money to cover the overdraft fees. You end up paying $100+ for a $9 forced loan. The bank could have just decli…

> They know exactly what they're doing. They're rich bankers robbing poor people.

I can understand thinking that the "correct" thing to do here is to simply not allow a transaction when there aren't sufficient funds, but this language goes overboard. It's not robbing a person because they were unable to keep track of how much money they own and adjust accordingly.

Post reply on HN