It’s not too surprising that keeping a lot of money in a lot of different accounts at a bank will result in paying less for services, but what’s not getting a lot of airtime is the fact that banks are also tweaking other accounts to give more consumers an advantage.
Fee for service pilots have been operating in the market since 2010. It’s likely that the results of these pilots are informing financial institutions where consumers are drawing the line on fee tolerance and/or their use of services that can be profitably combined to avoid paying an explicitly account fee. We anticipate more of these changes, as exemplified in this article about Chase checking accounts, over the course of the next year as the industry begins to see the impact of fees on consumer behavior.
In February 2011, Chase cut free checking, as many other major banks have done, but has since made an effort to improve service.
With the Chase Total Checking, now the basic checking account available at the bank, used to have the option of a direct deposit of $500 or more to avoid the $12 monthly fee. Now, it has changed to include multiple direct deposits that total $500 to avoid fee.
Also, Chase started providing checking benefits to active duty and reserve members of the U.S. military.Servicemembers can get upgraded to Chase Premier Plus Checking account, which offer more benefits that the basic checking account, at no cost.