Banks Changing Free Checking Accounts
The government has been working to reduce the amount of money the banks will be taking from people with their shady tactics. The majority of bank accounts that are opened in the US have an automatic overdraft protection enrollment. A lot of people open a checking account not knowing what can happen when their account is overdrawn. Next thing they know, they accidentally overdrew their account, and they receive a mountain of overdraft fees. Personally, I say the overdraft protection should not be an insane amount. Some banks have charged $38 for this overdraft fee. Do not forget, an overdraft is completely different from a Non Sufficient Funds fee. With the overdraft fee, it means that the bank automatically transferred money in your savings account to your checking account to cover the negative amount. A NSF fee simply means you have no more money to cover the charges. Because the Government is successfully making it harder for banks to make money from Overdraft and NSF fees, the banks are changing their checking account fees. It is going to be harder for the average person to qualify for a free checking account. It was easy to get a free checking account. Citi Bank is one of the banks that is taking lead in this new change for checking accounts. From now on, you are going to have to have at least a $1500 balance to maintain a free checking account. Even if you already have an existing account, you are going to be in for a surprise, because they are changing this rule for all existing and new checking accounts. If you want a free checking account but cannot maintain a $1,500 balance, then you are going to need to get a new checking account. Now, not all your money has to be in your checking account to make up the $1,500. As long as your combined amount from your checking, savings, CDs, etc. add up to 1500 you are fine. Otherwise, get use to getting charged each month to keep your checking account open.