RBC to stop charging customers and refund them for ACH transactions

52 responses to “Keeping an eye on bank fees”

1. 

   David

   January 18, 2024 at 6:44 pm

   
   

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2. 

   David

   January 28, 2024 at 1:06 pm

   
   

   Retired executives praise Central Bank’s move

   By Tony Best

   Three top retired Barbadian bank executives abroad have hailed the Barbados Central Bank for its successful intervention in the thorny issue of bank fees.

   At the same time, they have heaped praise on the Barbados Consumer Empowerment Network, BCEN, for its highly vocal and appropriate stance against the introduction of customer fees for electronic banking services.

   One of them, David Cutting, who spent more than a decade as chief executive officer of Britain’s Standard Chartered Bank in Nigeria, Uganda and Botswana during the first decade of the 21st century, said the efforts of the Central Bank that led Scotiabank to drop a planned fee was a clear demonstration of a “healthy” relationship in the banking sector.

   Phil Broome, a retired vicepresident of Scotiabank in Canada, and Winston Cox, a former Central Bank governor, said there was a persistent global problem with bank fees.

   As Cutting saw it, the outcome was a victory for both the Central Bank and BCEN.

   “The dispute’s outcome suggests two things to me: (a) BCEN was effective and (b) the relationship between the regulator (Central Bank) and the bank (Scotiabank) is also healthy, given that the Central Bank was able to persuade [it] to revisit the charges,” he told the Sunday Sun.

   “It showed the responsiveness to concerns in the public domain about the costs of banking and using the banks. The idea here is that you don’t want to drive customers away from using the banks to transfer money because that has inherent risks.”

   Cutting, a retired top banking executive with decades of international experience and who is now Barbados’ honorary consul in Atlanta, as well as a team leader of a consulting firm in Georgia, said the Central Bank acted wisely by getting involved in the controversy.

   He said the imposition of bank fees for electronic banking “was not unusual”.

   “Here in the US and in most markets some sort of fee is charged for electronic transactions. The question often is how much that fee is and what are the terms.”

   Interestingly, Cutting, who was also a top bank executive in New York, Hong Kong and Singapore, recalled a recent attempt to wire a donation to a church in Barbados. He said when he found out that the bank transaction fee was going to be $25 “to send $100, I decided I wouldn’t bother. I found another way to make that transaction”.

   He said the charging of fees for electronic bank transactions was often “contentious” and had a negative impact on customers.

   “It suggests a healthy relationship between the regulator and the banks operating in the market. Sometimes that relationship can be more contentious and sometimes the regulator is pushing too hard and the banks push back. In this case (in Barbados) it seems as though there was some agreement as the bank revisited the charge for its services,” said the graduate of Harrison College.

   Broome, who retired from Scotiabank in Ontario a decade ago, like Cutting, recalled a problem he had with a bank in Barbados over Internet banking fees.

   “Sometimes the fees can be excessive. Bank fees are a trouble all over the world. Kudos to the Central Bank, it was just trying to make sure that the customers were fairly treated. What happened in Barbados was a positive thing for consumers,” he said.

   Broome, chairman of the Barbados-Canada Foundation which has donated hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of specialised equipment to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, added: “We all must make money. Every institution must make money. If you do something you have to get paid for the service.”

   Cox, a Caribbean and European trained economist, said Scotiabank acted “wisely” when it reversed its decision to impose the $1.25 fee for electronics payment after the Central Bank and BCEN had complained about it.

   “I am not sure that Scotiabank incurred any expense in participating in the electronic payment system and therefore had no cost to pass on to its customers,” he said.

   Source: Nation

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