People are going to have to pay advance cash to banks more often to use their checking accounts. Image from Wikimedia Commons.

People who bank with the nation’s largest banks are going to have to start paying advance cash for having a checking account. Free checking accounts are all but gone at major banks, now that U.S. Bank is rumored to be jumping on the account fee bandwagon. Increasing bank fees are a trend unlikely to cease.

Banks charging advance cash

Free checking accounts, from the customer’s standpoint, were far preferable to checking accounts with fees. It used to be an account holder simply had to pay for blank checks, they didn’t have to pay the bank advance cash to keep the account open for another month. Account holders at the nation’s largest banks can bid goodbye to those days, as free checking accounts are becoming a thing of the past. Bank of America, Wells Fargo and JP Morgan Chase all introduced new fees on checking accounts, and U.S. Bank is likely going to hop on the bandwagon, according to CNN. More people can expect to have to part with some instant cash to use their own money.

Get around fees

Avoiding bank fees is one of the more common reasons people take out a payday loan, but there are other ways around bank fees as well. Consumers should check with their banks to find out what loopholes they might be able to use to get around fees. For instance, check to see if a minimum balance can get any maintenance fees waived and whether monthly direct deposits can get fees waived. Some banks will waive account fees after a minimum number of purchases with a debit card.

Free checking will not die

Just because major banks are instituting fees does not mean free checking is going extinct. For instance, many community banks and credit unions offer free checking accounts and lower fees than major banks. Fees at those institutions go back into the community, not toward funding an executive ski chalet in Scottsdale, Arizona.

Source

CNN

Credit card application checklist

The following is a checklist of key terms of your credit card agreement that you should look for before applying: the introductory and regular APRs for new purchases and balance transfers, the annual fee, the balance transfer fee and details on rewards programs. In order to determine how much of the above information could be easily found on credit card applications, CardHub.com conducted a study investigating the online applications of the 10 largest credit card issuers, based on outstanding balances.

Which companies have the clearest disclosures

In the CardHub.com Summer 2010 Credit Card Applications Study, Capital One and Bank of America ranked the highest in terms of clarity on their applications. These companies did the best in clearly disclosing the key information mentioned above without the applicant having to actively search for it. The credit card issuer with the least upfront applications was U.S. Bank, followed by USAA and American Express.

Common problems on credit card applications

The area in which most of the credit card companies were lacking was disclosure of the balance transfer fee. This is particularly problematic because not only is it the hardest component to find, but it is also the component that applicants are least likely to know to look for. The balance transfer fee is a common fee that is assessed when a customer transfers their balance from one credit card to another, and it is usually between 3 percent and 4 percent of the amount of the transferred balance. Another common problem was clarity on how much rewards points and miles are worth on non-cash back rewards credit cards (i.e. are 20,000 rewards points worth a family ski trip or a new dress?).

Improvements on credit card applications

Although there were common areas of weakness, the study also found that vague and misleading language, such as “as low as” or “up to,” has diminished considerably. Many companies were much more likely to clearly display the full range of APRs (e.g. Regular APR 12.99 percent — 24.99 percent) and clearly define how much cash back a customer would get on the purchases they made for cash back rewards credit cards.