President Biden criticizes banks that charge junk fees: “They charge up to $30 for these services!”
The Biden administration has begun cracking down on “junk fees” charged by banks for what the President described as "basic services like checking your account balance.” New regulation would make it illegal for banks to charge overdraft fees from a withdrawal, or when they had a positive balance at the time of purchase. According to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, such overdraft fees are a $15 billion industry.
Under increasing criticism for the practice during high inflation, some banks have already altered their practices. Bank of America lowered their overdraft fee from $35 to $10, and other banks now give warnings or cancel transactions so that overdrafts don’t happen.
Biden laughed as he recounted fees targeted by the new regulation: “Retrieving old bank records, that's really hard to do, man. Or looking up your balance on your loan, that's a killer, man, that costs so much money for those banks.”
The administration plans to target so-called junk fees in other industries, like the concert tickets and airline industries.
