Era of free banking at an end?

[PatchGirl]

The era of free banking is expected to come to end if a landmark ruling on overdraft charges goes against Britain’s high street banks.

The Supreme Court will rule whether bank charges, imposed on millions of current account customers, are unfair.

If the court decides they are, experts predicted banks stand to lose up to £10 billion while customers are likely to see charges imposed on a range of banking services which they have traditionally enjoyed for free.

Yesterday, figures revealed that almost half of current accounts are already charging banking customers a monthly fee of as much as £25.

Whilst £25 may not sound like much to a person in employment (although I think it's scandalous), what affect does that sort of charge have on a pensioner or someone who is unemployed?

[Beefy198]

So the case failed, but I wouldn't be too bothered.

Why?

Well, the Supreme Court were only looking at one part of this, i.e. whether customers could be bound by them when signing up to the account.

The authorities will now look at whether the prices are being set artificially high (i.e. collusion) by a lack of competition. That should be interesting.

A bit scary that our financial regulators haven't got the power to "just say no" though. No wonder we're in this economic mess.