Payday loan lenders have high fees for their small short-term loans. It is well publicized and laid out in the contract which is signed. These fees do not affect everyone since not everyone finds a need to take out a loan with a direct payday loan lender online. If they do, it is not a daily occasion and is quite helpful in that last ditch effort for access to cash. Banks though, are financial institutions which people use every day, trust to hole life savings and depended up on to do many financial jobs. When bank fees go up, it affects just about everyone.
Personal banking fees are on the rise. Legislature efforts to keep fees at a minimum are falling wayside as banks continue to raise the costs of their personal banking services. Fees for checking accounts and ATM usage are at their all-time high.
If a person uses an ATM which belongs to a different bank than their own are facing a double charge which the customer may not even be aware of. The owner of the ATM has a right to charge a persona surcharge for using their machine. The owner of the card being used has a right to charge a person a transaction fee to use their card in a machine which does not belong to them. That is double the cost. With prices on the rise, those charges add up fast. It is costing consumers more and more money to gain access to their own money. An ATM will charge you to use your own money. The direct payday loan lender charges for the use of their money. It makes more sense to pay to use other's money, not your own.
Banks are saying that the raise in fees is due to federal regulations on debit cards and overdraft policies. Losing billions of dollars in revenue needs to be made up somewhere else, right? With all the complaints against online payday loan lenders, it is pretty safe to say that they are not earning billions of dollars in fees from anything. That just goes to show that high interest rates on short-term loans do not begin to compare to lower rates with everyday long-term costs.
Charges for checking accounts are also making waves with people who cannot afford to keep $3000 in their checking account. The use of banking services, what was once free, now holds a monthly charge for many hard working people.
Changing banks is not an easy thing to do; especially if you do online banking and have bills scheduled and direct deposits. It takes time, and during those few weeks it takes to redo it all, a person will need money in both accounts. Those who live paycheck to paycheck will have a tough time switching banks, and the banks know it. Closing accounts is a process for a reason; the banks do not want to lose customers. Payday loan lenders are direct lenders for immediate cash when your paycheck is too far away. Banks have started their own short-term loans to imitate payday loans with no state regulations. High interest without regulations is one more way for a bank to collect revenue.
