New Bank Charges Objected To

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30688, 2 March 1965, Page 10

New Bank Charges Objected To

(New Zealand Press Association)

WELLINGTON,, March 1

The new system of bank charges must mean an increase in the cost of financial accommodation by banks, the Social Credit League leader (Mr V. F. Cracknell) said today.

“After all, the banks are In the business of lending money, which they do by the simple process of book-keep-ing, and they charge at least 6 per cent to their overdraft customers.

“If they now have to pay a cheque charge, on top of this interest and the standard annual overdraft fee, surely the customers are worse off,” Mr Cracknell said.

“The cost of the book-keep-ing involved in handling the overdraft customer’s account is just the same as handling a credit account, yet concessions are being made in the latter cases.”

“Admittedly the lack of ex-

change charges will be a small help, and this alteration is welcome and long overdue. It is a long time since the banks had physically to exchange anything from one branch to another except a bundle of cheques, and autornative processes will no doubt soon make even this unnecessary,” Mr Cracknell said. “However, one point interests me when I read that the banks say they will not make anything out of the new system, and that is> that they obviously waited until they had achieved savings bank departments before they announced the change. “Could it be they thought they would lose business from small accounts and now these can move to the savings bank department? “The main criticism of the change must be that the cost of finance is going up more and more,” said Mr Cracknell.