As banks search for new sources of revenue, some of the nation’s largest institutions have begun shifting that burden onto commercial customers, grafting new fees onto their most commonly-used products. But amid customer backlash, one of the most stridently-opposed new plans has been dropped.
Bank of America announced in September that it would implement a $5 fee for each month a customer used their bank’s ATM card for either a debit or credit transaction, beginning in January.
The bank was not the first to plan this type of fee, as a few others had already planned or started the fee in trial markets. But Bank of America’s attempt received the most publicity, and the most direct backlash. Grassroots activism by unhappy customers led tens of thousands of customers to sign a petition to close their accounts and move their money to local banks and credit unions.
As a result, Bank of America announced Nov. 1 that it would drop the planned new fee. Following their announcement, other national banks announced that they too would abandon planned bank card usage fees.
Bank of America spokeswoman Anne Pace told the Associated Press that the choice to roll out the fee was not based on any consumer trials, but on an internal customer survey. She did not give any details on the survey, but noted that “customer sentiment changed” since the survey “a couple of weeks” ago.
“This is Bank of America’s Netflix moment,” Mark Schwanhausser, a banking analyst with Javelin Strategy and Research, told the AP. “It misjudged what consumers would bear. It was the wrong fee at the wrong time.”