Banking fees are going up again!  Yup, going to the ATM is gonna cost you more than just stress now

So one by one banks have been letting their customers know that the fees on their accounts are going up.

Banks charge fees on various transactions – like using an NCB point-of-sale machine at a store when you have a Scotia debit card. Or using a Sagicor ATM to withdraw money when you have a JN card. Some banks even charge you if you try to withdraw more money than you have in your account. 

And banks are starting to charge more for these things, because they claim they need the money.

They’re saying that since COVID, their cost of doing business has gone up.

Between high inflation, high-interest rates and high electricity costs because of the Russia/Ukraine war, scam attacks etc, they say they’ve been taking hits. Plus security and courier transport companies such as Beryllium have raised their rates dramatically, and who can blame them?  That’s an extra cost for the banks.

And the more their costs go up, the more they have to find ways to offset that. So they’re charging us more. Cue the latest banking fee rise. 

And they were already making bank from fees!  According to our friend David Rose at the Observer, NCB brought in $23.5 billion dollars in fees and commissions last year.  Scotia brought in $17.2 billion.  And Sagicor made $7 billion from fees.

But the cost of doing business in 2022 isn’t the same in 2023, so banks are adding extra costs to transactions to bring in more money. They’re even adding costs to things that used to be free. 

JN customers who used to get unlimited free withdrawals from JN ATMs will now only have four free withdrawals a month.  After that, it’s $30 each. Real-time transfers (RTGS) to other banks will cost $250. And in-branch deposits below $1 million dollars will cost $1,000. 

And for some banks, some of the increases are $20 here and %$50 there, but those add up.