*US* Basic account holders charged for Debit Card use.

co123456

Story from the US, however how long before we see this thinking applied to UK basic bank accounts?

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/More-bad-news-for-bank-apf-1381425092.html?x=0&sec=topStories&pos=main&asset=&ccode=

NEW YORK (AP) -- Bank of America will start charging debit-card users $5 a month to pay for purchases. The move comes as the cards increasingly replace cash and as banks look for ways to offset the loss of revenue from a new rule that will limit how much they can collect from merchants.

dzug1

Basic bank accounts - maybe not. The term doesn't mean exactly the same here as in the US and to a degree the banks offer them to keep the regulator off thir backs. For standard bank accounts - entirely possible.

tagq2

I used to pay a monthly fee for my Bank of America checking account which came with a Visa Debit card. A monthly account fee without any "packaged account" freebies is perfectly standard in the US, although maybe stating that the fee is specifically for the debit card is new.

NFH

This has also been reported in the Daily Mail. The rationale appears to be to discourage consumers from paying with debit cards instead of credit cards, because the banks charge merchants much more in fees for credit card transactions than for debit card transactions. The fee is only charged in months when you use your debit card for purchases. Cash withdrawals don't affect this.

In the UK, debit cards have been established for much longer than in the US, and the banks here don't seem to mind their customers using debit cards instead of credit cards. Therefore this is unlikely to be followed in the UK.

Mikhail

I have a Keybank checking account with a gold debit card and it cost me nothing. I only use it while traveling in the US.