When last have you checked the transactions going through on your savings account? With the use of the debit card today, we tend to fail to notice the service charges that we pay on a savings account. No statement is sent, and unless you are a “techie” that goes online for everything; you really don’t see the charges.

Well, the other day I decided to update my NCB savings book. It had been months since I last had it done. I got a very rude awakening. I actually felt raped. Each time I used an ATM machine there was a charge, OK I kind of expected that if it was another banks multilink machine. But I also pay for using an NCB machine. So it’s a little less, big deal. By the way you also pay if you make a withdrawal through a teller inside the bank. In other words, it cost to take your own money out of your account however there is no charge to put it in.

But the charge that had me really, really, really fuming was the minimum balance violation fee. Yes, that’s correct, you pay if you have ‘likkle bit’ a money in your account. The minimum balance on my account is 5000.00 Jamaican dollars. I knew about the fee for dormant accounts. But this fee you pay on an active account each time it goes below the minimum amount prescribed by the bank. So if your pay goes to an account each month and you use it regularly, each time you dip below the minimum balance you are penalized and slapped with a fine. Are they trying to tell us that poor people in Jamaica mustn’t use the banking system? Are we to go back to putting our monies under our mattress?

I was so upset that I started calling around ready to change my bank, only to realize that most of them if not all now have a ‘whole heap’ of ‘Administrative Service Charges’. On a savings account these charges include, In-Branch Withdrawal Fee, Minimum Balance Violation Fee, Cash deposit in Excess of $x per day. For debit cards using ATM machines charges are on Withdrawal, Balance Enquiry, Declined request, Point of sale Purchases. These are just a few and the list continues on the use of current accounts, credit cards, payroll services and foreign exchange. These charges vary in amounts from bank to bank and even from account to account within each bank. They are represented by codes and are not always easy to recognize. Some are relatively new. One wonders how the banks have survived all these decades without these excessive ‘Administrative Service Charge’. Are we being ripped off?

My fellow Jamaicans what this means is that we all need to become more aware and thrifty. People power can be very persuasive. Get the facts; find out the ‘Administrative Service Charges’ you are paying on your accounts, both savings and credit, from your bank. Learn the codes. Demand that your bank get in line with the bank offering the lower rate. When opening a new account, choose the bank that offers the better rates. Let’s force the banks to do better.

On another note, don’t try the ATM machine six (6) times because you can’t believe ‘yu so brok’ it’s costing you. Budget and consolidate your withdrawals, it cost per transaction. Be smart, the alternative schemes are no longer here. ‘The banks done getting plenty off wi money by rinsing it’. Let’s not give them any extra.

Nuff love.