Here’s a headline you probably didn’t expect: Chase is actually lowering some of its bank fees. Yes, you did read that correctly.
However, the news doesn’t mean that checking accounts are much cheaper at the financial giant. The bank is only lowering certain fees, none of which are directly tied to typical monthly account activities. Here’s a breakdown of the adjustments to fees for Chase customers:
- The cost of overdraft protection transfers from savings to checking accounts will drop from $12 to $10.
- In-person requests for stop payments will drop from $34 to $30.
- Online or mobile stop-payment requests will drop from $27 to $25.
While any decline in bank fees is something to celebrate, I’m curious how many customers this will truly impact. I’m guessing the number of stop-payment requests is relatively small, and the bank’s real revenue generator comes from overdrawn customers who do not have savings accounts. More importantly, I’m wondering if this may give the bank an excuse to hike the fees that really matter to your bottom line, such as monthly maintenance fees or out-of-network ATM charges.
This certainly makes work for the public relations department at Chase easier as the entire banking industry continues to unload more charges for customers. While Bank of America and Wells Fargo have both made recent headlines with new checking account fee experiments, Chase can send customers notes full of banking cheer.
What do you think? Would these fee decreases help to save you any money?
