MSE News: MPs hit out at RBS and Lloyds over ATM access

tifo

Chrisblue1962 wrote: »

I you really really dislike the policy of RBS / Lloyds TSB restricting your useage of cashpoint machines, buy just ONE share in the bank you bank with e.g. Lloyds TSB or RBS. This then gives you voting rights as a shareholder.

As a taxpayer, didn't I, and the millions of other taxpayers, actually BUY shares in these banks that OUR govt bailed out when they borrowed money from US?

davidgmmafan

I can see how banks could claim to make a loss on such accounts, people who have them may contact them more than an average customer, and they may (on the whole) have a smaller credit balance. However I don't understand why the same logic they apply to student loans doesn't apply here. There are a whopping two banks who have a good record in offering accounts to bankrupts. Now they can argue they make a loss, or very little money on those accounts, but for student accounts they are prepared to take a loss as they will make money later.

Unless they believe that all bankrupts are unable to learn from the experience the same logic applies. How grateful will those people be to the bank that helped them out when nobody esle would.

JuicyJesus

dori2o wrote: »

It's completely disgraceful.

The bank DOES make money on these accounts.

The interest rate for example on the step account from Natwest is 0%. They do not pay interest on credit balances on these accounts. BUT they will receive interest on these balances whilst they hold the money in your account.

The simple thing to do is to move accounts to a bank that does have ALL it's customers interests at heart, whether they be those who are well off, or those who live hand to mouth, day to day, who rely on these simple accounts.

The credit interest they earn is 0.5%. On the average balance held in a BBA, this is a few pence; easily dwarfed by the cost of running the account. Even the issue of a single debit card costs many times more than this.

chambta

dori2o wrote: »

It's completely disgraceful.

The bank DOES make money on these accounts.

The interest rate for example on the step account from Natwest is 0%. They do not pay interest on credit balances on these accounts. BUT they will receive interest on these balances whilst they hold the money in your account.

The simple thing to do is to move accounts to a bank that does have ALL it's customers interests at heart, whether they be those who are well off, or those who live hand to mouth, day to day, who rely on these simple accounts.

The bald fact are that they don't.

How many thousands of pounds would the average balance need to be for them to be profitable compared to the actual average balances?

The majority of these accounts have very small balances and the holders generally have none or one other product that could make the bank profit.

BoGoF

Typical BBA customer;

Wages go in at end of month, bank transfers money to other organisations to pay the account holders bill (free of charge)

Account holder withdraws the rest (free of charge) and by end of 2nd week account is empty and remains so till the end of the month.

Repeat on and on in an endless monthly cycle.

So where in this chain of events does the bank make money?

iereboy

To help out the customers at Lloyds...

Ring up phone bank or go to your branch.

Tell the adviser you want to open an easy saver savings account with a cash card. (ITS FREE)

Once you get the easy saver with the card, you can transfer the money from your Cash account (over the Internet, branch or Phone bank) to the easy saver savings account.

The cash card with the easy saver can be used at any cash point!!

HOORAY! Hope this helps you guys out.

jen245

The same can be done with RBS and Natwest. Open a Natwest First Reserve, or RBS Instant Access savings account, they come with Visa debit cards that can be used in any ATM, and just use the basic account for bills. Problem solved

nokia1100

Can you withdraw cash over the counter in a branch of RBS or lloyds with a BBA? If so, if all the holders of these accounts made a point of doing that rather than using the ATM at each (when branches are open), it would probably cost the banks more than the 30p LINK charge them.

tagq2

BoGoF wrote: »

Typical BBA customer;

Wages go in at end of month, bank transfers money to other organisations to pay the account holders bill (free of charge)

Account holder withdraws the rest (free of charge) and by end of 2nd week account is empty and remains so till the end of the month.

Repeat on and on in an endless monthly cycle.

So where in this chain of events does the bank make money?

That is the typical cycle of any sensible account user, basic or full (although it omits the charges collected from the other side to process the debits and credits).

I would argue that every well-operated current account is, using the accounting method you've presented, loss-making.

chambta

tagq2 wrote: »

That is the typical cycle of any sensible account user, basic or full (although it omits the charges collected from the other side to process the debits and credits).

I would argue that every well-operated current account is, using the accounting method you've presented, loss-making.

Absolutely.

The key difference is that the average basic account holder will be far more unlikely to hold the mortgage/savings account/credit card/loan etc that makes the genuine profit.