Banks in Greece are considering replacing fees for each transaction with monthly fees that will vary according to the package the customers use.
More expensive packages will come with more benefits, but, in any case, are planned to cost no more than 10 euros per month, daily kathimerini reported on Sunday.
Bill payments and money transfers account for the vast majority of electronic transactions currently subject to a fee. For example a general €0.60 is charged for payments of utility bills and telecommunications.
The number of user accounts active in online banking has exploded in recent years, reaching 14 million, as several users have multiple bank accounts. Since 2020, the number of online transactions has doubled to nearly 500 million. Online transactions have not only drastically cut interactions with tellers, but have also reduced ATM transactions.
This is not an innovation. Many banks in European member-states follow this model. But, until now, Greek banks, to the annoyance of customers, clung to the model of ad hoc fees for each of several transactions.
The monthly fee packages will include ample, but limited, standing orders and money transfers.
while nobody in the corporate McMedia will ever point out the obvious- using cash has zero ‘transaction fees’ .
For those of us who are tax resident in Greece that is untrue. The tax office forces us to spend 30% of our income electronically. If we fail to do that they tax any deficit at 20%. That is an extra 20% on top of the tax we have already paid which would cost much more than any transaction fees if we used only cash. Also, for everybody, it is illegal to buy any item costing more than €500 in cash.
I hope they at least allow the option of continuing to pay transaction charges with no monthly fee. I estimate my transaction fees for this year will be around €20 so a monthly fee of €10 would be a big increase.
This is yet another con-trick by banks. The European Commission is demanding an end to the outrageous fees for incoming transfers — Piraeus Bank, for example, has been charging me 4 euros a transaction — and so the banks are looking to extort money by another means. New Democracy and Kathimerini are supporting the banks, of course, and not mentioning the actual reason for this crookery.
Years ago banks around the world had serious problems due to robberies.
Looks like a 180 to me!
Awful. Banks are thieves.