Access limited to cut out penalty fees

One domestic banking controversy where the industry is, however incrementally, adapting to pressure from government and consumer lobbies is practices in relation to penalty fees on bank accounts.

ANZ said in a media release yesterday that they would introduce a variant of their Access transaction account that precluded overdrafts and would attract no penalty fees.

In the case of periodic payments ANZ will reject the payment where the customer has insufficient funds. The bank will not charge a dishonour fee.

At present for an Access account ANZ clears direct debits at its discretion (but would usually do so) and charges penalty fees if the account is overdrawn. ANZ also charges penalty fees if there are insufficient funds and dishonours the payment.