Að bölva bönkunum

Það má oft skilja það á Íslendingum að Íslenskir bankar séu gráðugustu og þjónustugjaldasjúkustu bankar í heimi. 

Um það er þó líklega deilt, enda vilja býsna margir Kanadabúar meina að það séu hérlendir bankar sem eigi þessar nafnbætur skilið.  Mér segir svo hugur að það sama geti gilt um íbúa fleiri landa.  Sjálfur hef ég aldrei verið þessarar skoðunar, enda hef ég notið góðrar þjónustu og geri enn bæði á Íslandi og hér í Kanada.

Vissulega vildi ég borga lægri vexti og þjónustugjöld.  Vissulega vildi ég fá hærri vexti á innistæðurnar okkar. En ég vildi líka hafa hærri laun, borga lægri skatta og þar fram eftir götunum.

En mér flaug þetta í hug þegar ég var að lesa vefsíðu Globe and Mail, en Kanadísku bankarnir hafa einmitt verið að skila methagnaðartölum undanfarna daga.  En þar birtist líka stutt grein sem varpaði örlitlu ljósi á þetta mál, þar segir m.a.:

"Let us now recognize all the little people who helped to make it possible for the Royal Bank of Canada to report a profit of $4.7-billion last week.

If you're a customer of Canada's largest bank and you wrote a cheque, used your debit card or made a withdrawal, chances are excellent that you paid a service fee. These fees in turn contributed to the largest annual profit ever reported by a Canadian bank — enough money to put $143 in the pocket of everyone in the country.

Service fees account for less than 5 per cent of the revenue banks take in, which raises a question: Why do banks bother charging them?

RBC, for example, took in $36-billion in revenue in the past year, much of it from lending, offering credit cards and selling insurance and investments. A total of $1.8-billion came from service charges."

"Could the Royal and its rivals not generate a wealth of goodwill simply by using their massive profits from other activities to give customers a break from such charges?

Caroline Hubberstey, a spokeswoman for the Canadian Bankers Association, doesn't think so.

For one thing, the services entail a cost. "There is significant investment needed to provide the number of delivery channels — branches network, telephone banking, ATMs, online banking," she says.

"It's not cheap."

Until the early 1980s, she adds, the banks did, in fact, cover off service fees by using higher interest rates on loans. That practice ended when increased competition in the banking business began to drive down interest rates.

In any case, she argues, the current system is more fair. "Why should someone pay a higher rate of interest for other people to do banking services for free?"

And why should the banks reduce their profits to do the same?"

Svo mörg voru þau orð.  Eflaust hafa Íslensku bankarnir svipaða sögu að segja, það væri gaman að vita hve þjónustugjöldin eru hátt hlutfall af þeirra tekjum.

Hitt er svo auðvitað ljóst að þeir sem eiga fé á sparireikningum og hlutafé í bönkum gera það ekki af góðsemi, þeir vilja fá arð.

En greinina má finna hér.