| Bank of America Eliminates Overdraft Fees on Debit Buys Bank of America Corp. plans to announce Wednesday that Hydraulic cylinderit is eliminating $35 overdraft fees生活 on debit-card purchases as the bank tries to stay ahead of a sweeping round of regulations. The move means that any customer who attempts a purchase with insufficient funds will be denied at the point of sale. That will affect people who currently get nicked on small, everyday transactions such as coffee, groceries or subway passes without knowing their account is temporarily running a deficit. The new policy will begin for new customers on June 19 and in August for existing debit-card holders. Citigroup Inc. already has a similar policy in place. Overdraft fees are an important source of revenue for banking institutions, which earnedHydraulic cylinder $36.7 billion in 2008 for service charges on deposits even as U.S. banks got massive infusions of taxpayer-funded aid. According to a report by Moebs Services, a research firm in Lake Bluff, Ill., the banking industry was on pace to collect $38.5 billion in such fees for 2009. The change is likely to cost Bank of America, based in Charlotte, N.C., millions of dollars in revenue. Company spokeswoman Anne Pace declined to provide a specific figure. Bank of America now has 37 million debit-card customers who generate 60% of all overdrafts for the bank. Last year, Bank of America said it would abandon a plan to raise overdraft fees and offered other concessions, like lower daily limits on fees and assistance for unemployed customers, costing the bank an estimated $200 million per quarter. New federal rules on overdraft fees that take effect later this year will permit banks to charge overdraft fees on such transactions if a customerHydraulic cylinder opts into the program. But some banks 生活are struggling to upgrade their computer systems to adapt to different customer preferences. |
