Savers to pay for Accounts !!!

emweaver

Not all of us can afford to pay the banks! Plus I dont see why they deserve it they get enough money out of us from interest, charges, and investing our money. If I had to pay Id rather withdraw what little savings I do have.

I

savetilibleed

Blah99 wrote: »

Again, I don't see the big deal about paying for a bank account. We expect to pay for everything else, so why not a bank account? Banks have to pay for the ATM network, premises, cashier staff etc etc that let you access your money, so why wouldn't you pay for that service.

People pay for a safety deposit box or a storage unit, which is hardly different.

There has to be bank accounts for those who have their means tested benefits paid, which is usually into a bank account. Would be immoral to have these people pay for banking.

Jimmyc

Halifax have got the idea right, forget us paying them they are paying us £5 a month to bank with them

dizzie

Should savers pay for accounts?

In my view NO. Current accounts are one thing...they generally don't hold huge balances and the banks often have to process large numbers of transactions...cheques, direct debits etc. But as for savings accounts, I think these should stay firmly CHARGE-FREE!


Story - TheWay I See It

Once upon a time, there were banks. There were also building societies who wanted to become banks, but that's another story. These were the good old days when people could actually phone the bank branch at which they were a customer. Mr Saver would put his money in the bank and earn interest at X%. Mr Borrower would take out a loan and the bank would charge him interest at X+a bit more%. And the "bit more" helped to pay the bankers wages and make a profit.

But the bankers got greedy and wanted more money. They got their heads together and decided that the first thing to do was cut costs. This was a great idea. So the bankers went about closing some of their high street branches, and opened call centres abroad - in places where they could get away with paying pitiful wages.

But as the profits rolled in, the bankers became hypnotised by the pound signs. They began to talk in their sleep "More! Want More! Want more!", they groaned. So they decided to take some more risk - big risks in fact. They ignored the fact that many of them had dubious qualifications and had probably failed CSE maths. So, Sir Fred and his friends put on their blindfolds and began loaning money to anyone and everyone - regardless of their ability to repay these loans. It didn't matter. The bankers were happy again. They bought flashier cars and seven figure luxury homes and for a while, everything went along swimmingly.

Then BANG! In the US, people began to default on their unrealistic mortgages. The property market crashed. Instead of the jangle of money, the bankers began to hear the jangle of house keys (as people posted these back to them instead)! That jangle (which was kind of infectious and it spread across the globe) sent the jittery bankers fleeing to their preverbial bunkers where they cowered. And it was in those bunkers that the credit crunch baby was born.

Ahhh...new baby cried the governments, and they decided to thow a shower, bestowing tax-payers money on the credit crunch baby.... But it turned out to be a greedy little beggar (like a lot of kids) and they had to keep on giving.

By this time, the world's economies were in crisis and ordinary people were suffering. The governments took a large pair of garden shears to the interest rates and pruned them so vigorously that in the end there was hardly any interest left. Then someone came up with a bright idea that they could just print more money! (Another offered to go off to Woolworths to buy some felt tip pens so he could make some money at home. Then he remembered that Woolworths didn't exist any more and so he gave it up as a bad idea).

As with all stories, there is usually someone who lives happily every after....and it's the bankers (particularly Sir Fred with his £690K pension!). But in real life, someone has to clear up the mess, and it's been the taxpayer and the saver.

So ask yourselves, do we really want to pay for savings accounts whilst the culprits who got us into this mess continue to live it up?

Blah99

LesU wrote: »

I think the difference here is that I would be a little bit annoyed if I came back unexpectedly to my deposit box, only to find nothing in it because the bank was lending it out short term to another paying customer!
It's a bit like a letting agent telling you there is no income coming in from your property, charging you letting fees, and then finding he's letting it out to someone else on the side and pocketing the money.

Several people on this thread seem to be missing the point I've already made. Banks lend money on reserve ratio. Using the poster's comment above as an example, you are absolutely never going to come back to your bank and find there's nothing in your account because your bank has lent it out.

The money that banks lend out is vapour cash. They are not going into your Auntie Gertrude's account, withdrawing 10% and giving it to Spearmint Rhino so they can fund their next round of stripper acquisitions.

And before someone says it, this is of course totally different to a bank going under (which again won't happen for the UK majors) due to poor business management. In this case you still have recourse to the FSCS to get your £50k back.

Yes, banks make money off interest margin on loans to the general public. So what? Banks are a business, they make money from customers. They're giving you a service - credit - and taking a fee for it. If you don't like it, don't get a loan.

Yes, banks make money off banking charges. So what? If you go over your authorised overdraft limit, or bounce a cheque, you deserve to be charged. Would you expect to walk into a bar, order 3 pints of beer and only pay for 2? Would you argue that you just weren't prepared to pay for that 3rd pint so you shouldn't be charged for it? Banks are a business, and although you might have only gone over your limit by £10, if everyone does it it adds up to a fortune and becomes impossible to manage. If you don't like it, try living within your means.

There has to be bank accounts for those who have their means tested benefits paid, which is usually into a bank account. Would be immoral to have these people pay for banking.

Yes, I agree, they should be accounts that provide the basic facilities needed for banking.

tomstickland

Blah99 wrote: »

Banks lend on a reserve ratio. If Joe Average deposits his £2k salary into his current account, his bank is not rolling that 2k up and parceling it out as a loan. It's vapour money - if it wasn't, Joe wouldn't be able to withdraw it when he needs it.

Fractional reserve ratios mean that the bank could lend a significant proportion of the money out. It works on the principle that they depositers will never all withdraw their funds at the same time.

Blah99

tomstickland wrote: »

Fractional reserve ratios mean that the bank could lend a significant proportion of the money out. It works on the principle that they depositers will never all withdraw their funds at the same time.

As I've said repeatedly, the point is that Joe will never go to withdraw his cash and find it's not there, so the comparisons in other posts don't stand up.

withnell

If you look at the BoE averages they release, they've always been pretty low - think of all the people who have accounts like Halifax Liquid Gold still open, paying 0.1% for goodness knows how long - their rates aren't going to drop negative, but they bring the average right down. If banks were going to make us pay to keep savings, there's no way they'd be offering rates like 2%+ on instant access

adambro

Blah99 wrote: »

As I've said repeatedly, the point is that Joe will never go to withdraw his cash and find it's not there, so the comparisons in other posts don't stand up.

It doesn't matter though whether Joe's cash is actually loaned out to someone else or not. The fact is that the banks are only able to lend out "vapour money" if they have sufficient deposits to access that money. So whether or not our money is being lent out, us leaving the money in the care of a particular bank is enabling them to lend out more money, even if it isn't actually ours. The banks are therefore profiting from our money and we are risking it by depositing it with them so it makes complete sense that we should be rewarded for helping them make a profit.

chopperharris

Cmon , banks elsewhere in the world charge for banking , it is a service remember.

Direct debits , atms , pos debits , they all cost money.

Honouring overdrafts/overspends costs them money , mse champions that its wrong to do it , then people start to claim back money they were charged OVER YEARS of not watching their own money in the first place.

And we then expect them not to charge for a banking service?

They have to recoup somehow.Cumilatively we will all now end up paying more than those that had banking charges levied , and that imo just stinks......its a bit like us savers paying th eprice for the years of credit today.