In a way, I do believe fee-based banking is a fairer proposition, Mr Beale told the Daily Telegraph. It’s not free to run an ATM or a branch, so what it means is that when you apply charges to delinquent accounts they bear the large proportion of that cost. In an ideal world, the costs would be shared.
Concerns over the end of free banking surfaced following HSBC unit First Direct’s announcement in November 2006 that it would begin charging its current account customers a monthly fee.
Despite his support for fee-based banking, Mr Beale stated that Nationwide customers will not incur charges for current accounts anytime soon, and that the company will only implement fees if the rest of the industry does so, reported the BBC.
