Thanks to the findings of a recent report that some of the best business bank accounts across Britain have been punishing their consumers with exorbitantly high overdraft fees, more and more taxpayers have been expressing their displeasure with the current situation.
In light of how many banks had been the recipient of taxpayer funds through government bailout programs at the height of the global banking crisis, many industry experts have said that ratcheting up the overdraft fees shows a marked lack of regard for the massive amounts of cash paid out to them by the very same customers they are now fleecing.
This past August those same overdraft rates hit a brand new high water mark, averaging out at 19.1 per cent, despite the BoE-controlled base interest rate has been holding steady at just 0.5 per cent not only currently but for the last year and a half. Many financial experts have found the large margin between bank rates and the base rate quite astonishing, and a large number of customers, already short on funds due to the economy, have experienced incredibly high overdraft fees.
The worst offenders out of all the UK banks have been identified as both the Royal Bank of Scotland and NatWest, both members of the almost completely nationalised RBS Group. On average the group charged overdrafts 38 times higher than the base rate, leading to a high profit margin for banks at the expense of consumers.
A spokesman for the Independent Banking Advisory Service commented on the phenomenon, saying that despite the base rates being historically low, banks have been increasing their margins against any incentive for them to engage in such practices; profiteering is at an all-time high, despite a large percentage of UK consumers facing increased bills in conjunction with reduced incomes, and the banks, the spokesman continued, are making a bad situation worse.