MSE news: Australian giant abolishes "unfair" bank charges

Banking_Gremlin wrote: »

HBOS have the Reward account at the minute and the £35.00 chg's and £28.00 overdraft chg's have been removed on that account and been replaced with a £5.00 fee each day your overdrawn, but if you have an overdraft on the account of under £2'500.00 and you use it there is a fee of £1.00 per day and £2.00 per day over £2'500.00.

I think this type of charging is going to come into play with all accounts across all the banks soon as another way of getting cash back from us.

It came in about a year ago I think.

Banking_Gremlin wrote: »

The Reward acc came out around end of Jan this Year its replaced the current acc and the High interest current acc.
It doesn't have debit or credit interest either it just pays £5 into the acc when you put £1000.00 a month into it.

Time flies as they say, I remember that and yes it must be then. thanks for correcting me and I SHOULD know better.

The National Australia Bank also own the Bank of New Zealand; I have had an account there for 23 years (since I was seven). I get charged £1.80 (NZ$3.50) per month for 30 EFTPOS or ATM transactions (what the UK calls chip & pin), unlimited transfers online between my accounts, and 10 electronic transactions (so paying bills online, transferring money to my Nan etc). Anything above this is 25c (or about 10p). I also earn better interest than here in the UK. Combined with the assurance I won't get stung for being overdrawn, I think the Kiwi (and Australian) deal is better.

Cheques are usually cleared next day if submitted before 3pm, occasionally two days.

Inter-bank payments (so transfers to individuals or companies) can be checked in an hour.

Balances are always up to date; I can do my grocery shopping with my debit card, walk out of the shop, phone for a balance update on my mobile/ go to an ATM, and they will have already deducted the grocery shopping. They also don't allow you to pay for anything with a debit card if you've not got the money/agreed overdraft in your account (also goes for ATM withdrawals). Generally the only way you can go into informal overdraft is if you issue a cheque or direct debit is taken from your account. I think thats a significant difference between the UK and NZ.

Chip & Pin (EFTPOS) has been in place since 1995; I believe NZ was the first country to introduce it. Internet banking wasn't too far behind; I'm sure I remember doing this back in the late 1990s. I was definitely doing transfers by phone in mid-90s, and I wasn't unusual.