Big Banks Make Billions from Junk Fees
New report highlights how banks profit from unnecessary and sometimes illegal fees
Overdraft fees. Late fees. Insufficient funds (NSF) fees. Sometimes, you pay a fee if you DON’T pay online. Sometimes, you’re charged a fee if you don’t have payments auto-debited from a checking account.
The array of fees for banking is seemingly endless. Many of these fees are excessive — often costing far more than the bank spends to actually provide the service.
Now, though, we have some insight into just how much big banks are earning by charging these ubiquitous junk fees.
Consumer advocacy group Accountable.us is calling out America’s largest banks after earnings reports revealed these institutions — banks like JP Morgan Chase and Wells Fargo — earned more than $20 billion last year from junk fees alone.
In January 2022, the CFPB announced an initiative to save consumers billions of dollars by cracking down on “exploitative junk fees.” The CFPB said these fees typically include anything from overdraft and Non-Sufficient Funds (NSF) fees, ATM and service fees, and other fees consumers incur in the banking ecosystem.
That’s a lot of profit from fees that are often completely disconnected from the cost of…