Washington – Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) is calling on the Federal Reserve to ensure that banks do not penalize customers as they phase out free checking accounts and take other steps to increase revenue.
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Banks are seeking new revenue streams after the Fed imposed curbs on hefty fees some charged customers for overdrawn accounts or for switching banks.
“This a radical departure from what consumers are used to and it is coming too fast for them to even realize what hit them,” Schumer said in a statement yesterday.
“Before banks impose new fees on something that has been free for years, they should at least give customers enough time and notice to get ready or even change banks if they want to,” he added.
“It is essential that the Fed make sure that financial institutions provide clear and transparent guidance to consumers,” Schumer wrote to Fed chief Ben Bernanke.
He said it was “imperative that the Fed work to prevent banks from imposing additional, hidden fees and asked that Bernanke “pay special attention to financial institutions as they implement these adjustments.”
BH
Let the Goverment just take over the bank system.
Considering ‘everyone’ has a checking account, but not everyone over draws, I want to thank the government for watching out for the larger good here.
Maybe they could just stay away from everything, and leave private business to private business.
This slime ball & his close friend Barney Frank are the reasons banks had to charge this way anyway. You can’t trust the govt to do anything right. Get rid of Chucky Schumer & Gilibrand and replace them with people who are right minded people.
Its because of the democrats who always think there the good doers for the “little” guy that the banks are starting to charge. Her rid of these liberals for once and for all. tell them to butt out of private business. You hear me Chunky Shmucky.
If the dems would stop messing with business the economy would get better by its self and stop spending our money.
What the big deal. It costs the bank a certain amount of money to maintain a checking account, especially those that keep small balances and but write many checks. It takes 5 minutes to walk across the street (and thats about as far as you have to go) to open a new checking account if you don’t like the new fees. Thirty to sixty days should be enough for even someone as challenged as Schumer.
# 6 – The Republicans stayed out of business and let the banks do what they wanted. Result: we almost had another Depression, the economy almost crashed, a huge number of people lost their jobs, lost their investments, and many lost their homes.
Doesn’t it say “Pray for the welfare of the government, for without it people would swllow each other alive?” The Republican administration stayed out of the banking business, and sure enough, the banks swallowed the consumers (you and me) alive, and then proceeded to crash anyway.