Banks in Greece to impose a monthly fee to account holders

[BeeTee]

Banks in Greece will charge a monthly fee of 0.50 euros to each deposit account of natural persons. Ordinary savers are excluded.

The fixed fee of €0.50 per month will only concern the maintenance of deposit accounts that have the ability to make payments, have debit and credit cards, transfer funds, etc.

In contrast, there will be no charge on ordinary savings accounts, but they will not have the ability to make payments or debit card withdrawals.

With no further increase in interest rates expected and, consequently, a rise in margin income, Greek banks are looking for ways to increase fee income and at the same time reduce operating costs from maintaining forgotten or double and triple accounts without balances and movements, news website in.gr and other media reported.

It is noted that monthly charges existed on accounts for businesses only.

With this move, the banks estimate that:

they will boost revenue from commissions which annually amount to around 1.5 billion euros and are a small part of overall operating profits.
they will reduce the operational costs of dormant or null and inactive accounts.
Today it is estimated that there are 65 million deposit accounts in Greek banks, most of which are double and triple (a depositor has more than one account), while almost 73% have a balance of up to 5,000 euros.

In other words, they estimate that many beneficiaries of zero and forgotten accounts will be forced to close them or consolidate their balances in a new deposit product with a more favorable interest rate that will come with more services.

Furthermore, banks also expect that the so-called subscription packages launched today by all systemic banks will be promoted.

This is a pre-purchase of packages from 2 to 10 euros per month or 25 euros per year that include a corresponding number of free transactions (transports, remittances, standing orders, withdrawals, card subscriptions, etc.).

It is clarified that the availability of these packages is optional and for those who do a lot of transactions, it can be an advantageous solution.

Other issues are:

further promotion of the IRIS interbank transaction system, which offers free and instant payments of up to 500 euros per day.
reforming and simplifying the price list of charges that will be more responsive to the needs of the new digital age.
That is, some fees may decrease or disappear, and others may increase.

Worth noting that the monthly fee comes after the Greek Competition Commission fined banks and forced them, in addition to the fine, forced banks to decrease the fees on cash withdrawals from other banks’ ATMs

https://www.keeptalkinggreece.com/2024/02/02/banks-monthly-fee-account-holders/