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.
How about no overdraft fees? You know what we should do to people who have no money? Charge them more money.
This is my issue with the whole “charging poor people for not having money” thing. The bank is a business and not a human right. However, most employers require you to have a bank account in order to be paid. Seems to me, if society needs you to have a bank account, it should be nationalized and mandated that everyone is to be given a fee-less bank account. The bank account could be administered by the government. Big banks can still exist and rich people can dump their money into those oil-investing sonsofbitches meat hooks till the cows come home.
I think the us used to have banking through the post office https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postal_savings_system
Seems like the kind of thing conservatives would hate.
There have been moves to reinstate this semi recently as well.
It would be a huge improvement for millions of people, force the banking industry to shed predatory practices, and likely make billions for government spending by offering reasonable loans.
I think Elizabeth Warren whispered it into an Op-Ed on Common Dreams six years ago, only to have ten-thousand Buttigieg/Klobacher supporters crawl out of the woodwork and denounce her as a black-hearted communist who hates freedom.
Wow, apparently the biden admin started a very limited pilot program back in 2021. They limited it to cashing checks, money orders, wire transfers and ATM access to prevent Congressional interference. Suprisingly progressive, in a limited way.
Cant find any new info on this. I assume its ongoing.
Oh wow. I’m Canadian, didn’t know you guys had that. We would never attempt something so straightforward lol
But banking is free… Running out of money is not.
Yeah I’m in the same boat. But I can’t say the bank put the gun to my head and made me overdraft! I did that, yes, it’s due to my financial situation which is the result of everything else going tits up.
I mean, this is the same argument with student debts that we had four years ago.
You’ll get some Harvard snob issue a white paper explaining how overdraft fees disproportionately affect middle-income people (ie, people with bank accounts) and therefore eliminating them is regressive. You’ll hear a bunch of hemming and hawing from banksters, about how this will destroy jobs and create enormous amounts of bank fraud and actually technically increase fees for everyone else which isn’t fair to them. And then you’ll see a court issue some briefing about how this violates the Farts McGee clause of the Jefferson draft of the Declaration of Independence, so it isn’t an enforceable bureaucratic change in states that contain a vowel.
Finally, we’ll get ten thousand Op-Eds arguing “Overdraft Fees Are Good Aktuly”, and in six weeks I’ll be on the phone with my mother asking whether China is trying to undermine the banking system by tricking Joe Biden into defunding her mortgage. Overdraft fees will double by 2025, the Leftist Radicals in the Democratic Party will get blamed, and Donald Trump will win in a landslide thanks to “Bankrun Biden” memes that have inundated social media in the last six weeks of the race.
Someone said how overdrafting is a thing you can turn on or off. Should be turned off by default. If you turn it on and overdraft, then I see no issue with having a fee.