Personal Finance Advice and Commentary

J.D. Power released the its annual Retail Banking and Satisfaction Study this week, and the results are somewhat surprising. In a year of continued economic hardship, rising checking account fees and shrinking bank services, overall customer satisfaction with banks has actually risen slightly: The study, now in its sixth year, finds that retail banking customer

Looks like the heavy snows of the last few months won’t be the only blizzards we see this season. Last week I wrote about how banks will likely raise fees for checking accounts in response to new caps on the fees they can charge merchants for debit transactions. Well, a Wall Street Journal article out

Banks are raising fees and doing away with free checking accounts, according to Bankrate.com’s 2010 Checking Study, an annual survey of banks’ checking account offerings. In case you missed the study when it was published back in October, here’s what you should absolutely know about current trends in banking: • Free checking. Sixty-five percent of

How much does your checking account cost? Is it free? Or do you pay $5, $10 or $15 per month? The answer, according to the American Bankers Association, or ABA, isn’t zero. Nor is it between $60 and $180 per year. In fact, the ABA says, the annual cost of a checking account is actually