Turned off by the high cost of a la carte banking services, account holders are switching to "all-you-can-eat" accounts. These come at a modest fixed price no matter how often you transact.
However, Nick Coates, the senior policy officer with the Australian Consumers Association, says: "Four or five dollars a month doesn't sound like much, but you need to read the fine print to assess whether these accounts suit you,"
When the Commonwealth Bank unveiled its Streamline e-Access and Streamline Unlimited accounts recently, it became the last major bank to add flat-fee transaction accounts to its product mix.
Streamline e-Access is a transaction account with unlimited electronic transactions including CBA ATMs, self-service telephone banking, NetBank and Eftpos for $4 a month.
Streamline Unlimited gives unlimited electronic transactions coupled with unlimited branch and agency withdrawals, cheques written and assisted telephone banking for $6 a month.
Denise Orrock, the general manager of researcher InfoChoice, says CBA had in the past shown a reluctance to introduce this style of account because of the workload involved in moving customers to new accounts.
"Saying that, the ANZ has been very successful with its own accounts in the all-you-can-eat space for quite a number of years," he says, "[and] it's rare that any initiative that achieves a degree of success is not adopted by the balance of the banking powers."
However, even CBA admits that consumer resistance to rising fees played as much a part as competitive pressures. A recent Nielsen Media Research survey showed CBA had the lowest customer satisfaction rating - in a year when satisfaction with banks overall had sunk to a three-year low.
Michael Cameron, CBA's group executive of retail banking services, says the two new flat-fee accounts complement other initiatives designed to woo disgruntled customers, including the introduction of a low-rate credit card and the removal of "everyday" transaction fees on NetBank.
"We have heard our customers loud and clear when it comes to fees and services," he says. "There will be a significant benefit to customers by providing them with the ability to reduce the transaction account fees that they pay."
Such accounts mean customers no longer have to ration their transactions and worry about costs each time they key in their PIN. However, some transactions are excluded or limited.
Source, The Age , Denise Cullen
