iIT'S OUT...........

[Gez]

The Office of Fair Trading: Personal current account market not working well for consumers, says OFT

[Gez]

So in light of this report, what now for the defences that bankers have entered for claims under the old "to cover our admin costs" T&Cs?

I have picked out some quotes & figures from the OFT report below. This little collection could almost suggest that some banks may have knowingly lied to the courts in their written defence where they maintained that the charges were purely the cost of administering whatever triggered them.

If that's true, then banks spent 31% of all their income administering unarranged overdrafts?

 

A combination of complexity and a lack of transparency means that consumers and competition are focused almost exclusively on more visible fees, and not on the less visible elements such as insufficient funds charges and forgone interest – despite the fact that these make up the vast bulk of banks’ revenues.

 

Banks earned over 85 per cent of their revenues on PCAs from two sources: net interest income from credit and debit balances (£4.6 billion), and levying charges associated with insufficient funds (£2.6 billion).

 

During the course of this market study, the OFT has seen banks’ internal documents on the level of charges that include statements such as: ‘in order to maximise fee revenue, whilst maintaining our competitive position, selective increases in [insufficient funds charges] are proposed’, and ‘Increasing insufficient funds] charges will have less impact on our marketing position… due to its lower visibility.’

 

 

We found that the banks earn over 30 per cent of all their revenues from insufficient funds charges.

 

Although banks apply charges in different ways the unit price for charges, where applied, is similar across suppliers. Overall the level of individual charges has gone up considerably in the last seven years whether adjusted for inflation or not. This is particularly the case for paid item fees, which increased from an average of £16 to £28, a nominal increase of 75 per cent over the period.

 

 

The 16 banks lent £680 million as unarranged overdrafts in 2006.

If the insufficient funds charges (excluding charges for unpaid items) of £1.5 billion in 2006 were treated as the cost of borrowing on the £0.68 billion average unarranged overdraft balance over the year for the 16 banks, we estimate that the annual interest rate would be more than 220 per cent. While short term loans are distinct in their short duration and can be expensive to administer, this level of charging compares unfavourably with many similar forms of lending such as credit cards and personal loans.

Edited July 17, 2008 by Gez

[Gez]

Gez, the wording maximising fee income is one I have seen, and while it sounds like a bank being a bunch of greedy beggars, it was about making sure the correct fee for the correct service is keyed, for example, Safe custody in branches, copy statement fee, stopped cheque fees etc,etc. The context of the wording is such that you could not consider it to be within the confines of bank penalty charges.

No problem with that, but it is as clear as a dogs sensitives what context "maximising fees revenue" is used within that paragraph.

That is really only a small part of it. Even without those comments, the banks want us and the courts to believe that they spent over 30% of their total income on administering instances of unarranged overdrafts.

So the costs of running all those thousands of branches, call centres and marketing would be separate from these costs. Its as black & white as that. Either: a) the truth is absent, b) call centres, branches & marketing is free, c) banks have a very small profit margin.

 

What bothers me more is that this report states pretty much that there was no point in examining banker's costs. WHY NOT? This was the basis of their defence and the very legality of their charges hinges on an examination of their costs. Don't they have a similar system to Cynthesis?