The cost to overdraw a bank account could drop to as little as $3 under a proposal announced by the White House, the latest effort by the Biden administration to combat fees it says pose an unnecessary burden on American consumers, particularly those living paycheck to paycheck.
The change could potentially eliminate billions of dollars in fee revenue for the nation’s biggest banks, which were gearing up for a battle even before Wednesday’s announcement. Exactly how much revenue depends on which version of the new regulation is adopted.
Banks charge a customer an overdraft fee if their bank account balance falls below zero. Overdraft started as a courtesy offered to some customers when paper checks used to take days to clear, but proliferated thanks to the growing popularity of debit cards.
If this works, making overdraft fees $3 is fucking huge.
Some points, directly from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau:
• Among households that frequently incurred overdraft/NSF fees, 81% reported difficulty paying a bill at least once in the past year.
• Among consumers in households charged an overdraft fee in the past year, 43% were surprised by their most recent account overdraft, 35% thought it was possible, and only 22% expected it. Consumers who overdraft infrequently are more likely to be surprised by a fee
• While just 10% of households with over $175,000 in income were charged an overdraft or an NSF fee in the previous year, the share is three times higher (34%) among households making less than $65,000.
https://www.consumerfinance.gov/about-us/newsroom/cfpb-issues-report-showing-many-americans-are-surprised-by-overdraft-fees/
Awesome analysis… but I’m not gonna read all that nor is your average voter Biden is speaking to.
I’m not a financial expert and the problem with legislation like this is obtuse and still not designed to actually prevent the overall problem, but to make it stinging less.
Things like this are what I call “one time mail in rebate partial discount” legislation - because it’s not only impossible to distill into anything simple for voters to understand, but it only marginally affects the problem rather than solving it…
Like - because the US doesn’t have high-speed trains, instead of building any… now we’re going to let Amtrak instead just build 200 miles of more 35 mile an hour driving garbage trains between 2 major cities in one state that already supports Biden and pretend that “we’re solving transportation in the US.”
The real answer should be something much simpler like “we eliminated overdrafting” - Meaning banks cannot overdraft you anymore or charge you for it.
How about instead of the bank monetizing people fucking up when they’ve run out of money we instead just make it so banks are required to not overdraft people thereby not charging you money for taking out what is effectively a micro-loan with a relatively enormous moment-of-transaction interest charge?
I don’t think it’s a bad thing Biden did something, but pretending that these things are “huge wins” you can slap on a bumper sticker like the passing of Social Security or the civil rights act or whatever is fucking delusional.
Perhaps if you aren’t interested in reading analysis by others you might want to consider why your response is a multi paragraph answer justifying why a good news headline is actually bad and confirms your priors that Biden and Democrats are bad. I think this comment is a pretty perfect example of bad faith arguments.