Friday, October 28, 2011

Cowardly Banks Now Scared Away From Debit Fees

Maybe those noisy protesters from the so-called 99% are having an effect on the system already.  Banks that are too big to fail are getting too scared to charge more fees.  Chase and Wells Fargo are backing off plans to assess more fees on debit card transactions.  BofA hasn't budged yet, probably because they're in such terrible shape and will have to have their corporate fingers pried away from their new fee plan once the boardroom gets sufficiently terrified.  A bank in that much trouble must have either a pretty high pain threshold, extremely tone-deaf management, or a billionaire investor like Warren Buffett who assures them they'll be bailed out now matter how many new fees they assess.  Oh, wait, that's right, it's the last choice.  Okay, that explains it. 

Doesn't Berkshire Hathaway still own WFC too?  And isn't JPM historically a Rockefeller family franchise?  If so, they and other "healthier" banks will figure out more devious means of financial repression.  Depositors need to read the pop-up windows every time they log into their accounts from now on, because failing to click "No Thank You" on one  may result in the assessment of some stealth annual fee for non-acknowledgement. 

Full disclosure:  No positions in bank stocks at this time.