Bank of America and Chase move in the right direction

This is big-ish news.  B of A and Chase are moving in the right direction on their overdraft fee policies, though they still have a loooong way to go.  Here’s a link to the main article in the New York Times. And here are some thoughts on specific bits of the story.

The moves come as lawmakers and regulators in Washington push proposals to reform what critics say are excessive charges of which consumers are unaware.

Here, here.  Let’s not go and give the banks too much credit here - there’s no way they would be doing this if they didn’t see the writing on the wall in Congress and maybe even the Fed.

Bank of America said it was spurred by consumer demand rather than legislative pressure to change its policy. “We made the decision that we had to help customers now and help those most stretched by the economy,” said Brian T. Moynihan, president of Bank of America’s consumer and small-business banking operations. “They found themselves getting hit by too many fees, and they said, ‘Help us out.’ ”

I think what they were actually saying was something closer to “Stop screwing us, you insensitive, bloated-on-stimulus-money but still sticking it to us bastards!”  But I guess when you translate that into executive-speak, that’s what it comes out as.

Beginning Oct. 19, Bank of America will stop charging any fees for customers who overdraw their accounts by less than $10 in a single day. It will also limit the number of overdraft fees it charges to four a day, although the bank will continue to charge a fee of $35 per overdraft.

This is why it’s a step in the right direction, but not near far enough.  Four fees a day is still ridiculous, and $35 a pop is still unconscionable.   Until these numbers start to change, I’m going to keep fighting.

Current customers who want to opt out of Bank of America’s automatic overdraft protection can go into their branch on Oct. 19 and turn off the ability to overdraw their accounts. The bank will cut them off when their debit card purchases or A.T.M. withdrawals go beyond the money in their checking account, and will no longer cover bounced checks.

Um, isn’t this the way your card should work, like, when you don’t have any money, it gets turned down?  Score one for common sense, but again, let’s keep the pressure on until they really clean things up, or it gets cleaned up for them.