MNeagle
6th January 2011, 02:08 PM
By Jennifer Waters, MarketWatch
CHICAGO (MarketWatch) — Responding to what it calls a “new economic reality,” Bank of America Corp. said Thursday it’ll tack on banking fees of $6 to $25 and restructure accounts according to customers’ status and choices.
The largest U.S. bank /quotes/comstock/13*!bac/quotes/nls/bac (BAC 14.43, -0.01, -0.07%) will begin assigning categories to new accounts later this month in Arizona, Georgia and Massachusetts. The account levels — identified as Enhanced, Premium, eBanking and Essentials — will carry different fees based on account activity and access, as well as on various bells and whistles. The more money a customer has with the bank, and the more B. of A. products the person chooses, the greater the rewards, and the fewer the fees, associated with those accounts.
“What we’re trying to do with these solutions is offer different benefits and features based on your full relationship with the bank,” said Susan Faulkner, deposits and card-product executive, on a conference call with reporters Thursday. “We wanted to be able to respond all the way up to our ‘mass affluent’ customers with premium options and platinum rewards.”
Bank of America has relationships with some 57 million households, according to the bank, or one in every two in the United States.
Holding an Essentials account, the most basic one the Charlotte, N.C.-based bank plans to offer, will cost roughly $6 to $9 a month — a fee that cannot be waived. The monthly eBanking account fee, which debuted last summer, is set at about $9, but that figure would rise another $9 for a customer who wants service from a teller or to receive a printed statement.
Accounts with additional features will carry monthly fees of $15 to $25, though those will be waived for customers with more extensive relationships with the bank. Customers with $2,000 in monthly deposits and a balance of $5,000 in an Enhanced account, for example, will have the monthly $15 fee waived.
A Premium account will cost $25 a month, but that fee will be waived if the combined balances at the bank exceed $20,000 or if the customer holds a mortgage with the bank.
Those with balances of $50,000 or more will be rewarded with so-called Platinum Privileges, which include special mortgage benefits and preferred pricing on many standard banking services, the company said.
Bank of America is calling the program a pilot, but also said it will roll it out nationally by the end of this year and expects it to be fully in place by 2012.
Faulkner said the bank will tweak programs based on customer feedback. “We want to establish relationships with our customers based on their needs,” she added. “Today it is hard for our customers to customize, and we’ll be able to offer that with these solutions.”
Bank of America, like rival banks, is instituting new fees and imposing others as it grapples with revenue lost to regulatory and other changes. Competitors such as J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. /quotes/comstock/13*!jpm/quotes/nls/jpm (JPM 44.51, +0.03, +0.07%) and Wells Fargo & Co. /quotes/comstock/13*!wfc/quotes/nls/wfc (WFC 32.27, +0.12, +0.36%) , already have slapped new fees on checking accounts.
http://ei.marketwatch.com/Multimedia/2010/10/18/Photos/MD/MW-AG878_bank_o_20101018173944_MD.jpg
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/bank-of-america-ups-fees-categorizes-clients-2011-01-06?siteid=rss&rss=1
CHICAGO (MarketWatch) — Responding to what it calls a “new economic reality,” Bank of America Corp. said Thursday it’ll tack on banking fees of $6 to $25 and restructure accounts according to customers’ status and choices.
The largest U.S. bank /quotes/comstock/13*!bac/quotes/nls/bac (BAC 14.43, -0.01, -0.07%) will begin assigning categories to new accounts later this month in Arizona, Georgia and Massachusetts. The account levels — identified as Enhanced, Premium, eBanking and Essentials — will carry different fees based on account activity and access, as well as on various bells and whistles. The more money a customer has with the bank, and the more B. of A. products the person chooses, the greater the rewards, and the fewer the fees, associated with those accounts.
“What we’re trying to do with these solutions is offer different benefits and features based on your full relationship with the bank,” said Susan Faulkner, deposits and card-product executive, on a conference call with reporters Thursday. “We wanted to be able to respond all the way up to our ‘mass affluent’ customers with premium options and platinum rewards.”
Bank of America has relationships with some 57 million households, according to the bank, or one in every two in the United States.
Holding an Essentials account, the most basic one the Charlotte, N.C.-based bank plans to offer, will cost roughly $6 to $9 a month — a fee that cannot be waived. The monthly eBanking account fee, which debuted last summer, is set at about $9, but that figure would rise another $9 for a customer who wants service from a teller or to receive a printed statement.
Accounts with additional features will carry monthly fees of $15 to $25, though those will be waived for customers with more extensive relationships with the bank. Customers with $2,000 in monthly deposits and a balance of $5,000 in an Enhanced account, for example, will have the monthly $15 fee waived.
A Premium account will cost $25 a month, but that fee will be waived if the combined balances at the bank exceed $20,000 or if the customer holds a mortgage with the bank.
Those with balances of $50,000 or more will be rewarded with so-called Platinum Privileges, which include special mortgage benefits and preferred pricing on many standard banking services, the company said.
Bank of America is calling the program a pilot, but also said it will roll it out nationally by the end of this year and expects it to be fully in place by 2012.
Faulkner said the bank will tweak programs based on customer feedback. “We want to establish relationships with our customers based on their needs,” she added. “Today it is hard for our customers to customize, and we’ll be able to offer that with these solutions.”
Bank of America, like rival banks, is instituting new fees and imposing others as it grapples with revenue lost to regulatory and other changes. Competitors such as J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. /quotes/comstock/13*!jpm/quotes/nls/jpm (JPM 44.51, +0.03, +0.07%) and Wells Fargo & Co. /quotes/comstock/13*!wfc/quotes/nls/wfc (WFC 32.27, +0.12, +0.36%) , already have slapped new fees on checking accounts.
http://ei.marketwatch.com/Multimedia/2010/10/18/Photos/MD/MW-AG878_bank_o_20101018173944_MD.jpg
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/bank-of-america-ups-fees-categorizes-clients-2011-01-06?siteid=rss&rss=1