NAB drops some penalty fees on business accounts

National Australia Bank will cut some fees incurred by businesses when they incur unauthorised overdrafts, the Herald Sun and Financial Review reported. NAB is likely to publicise better details today.

The newspapers estimated the cost to NAB revenue at $40 million.

Two fees the bank will eliminate are the $50 fee incurred when there are insufficient funds to cover a periodic payment and the $60 fee incurred when the bank dishonours a cheque. However, if the overdraft exceeds $1000 the business will still incur the fee (assuming the bank chooses to honour the payment).

The inward cheque dishonour fee of $13 will also go.

The bank will also cut the cash handling fee of 0.25 per cent on deposits of more than $5000.

The move is consistent with the bank's strategy of recovering lost ground in consumer and business banking markets and removing the nuisance factor, and costs, from disputed fees.

Other banks are likely to respond in part to NAB's fee cuts, though banks followed NAB's overrated price lead on consumer bank fees in the second half of last year with some reluctance.

NAB eliminated a range of fees for consumer bank accounts recently, forcing most other banks to reduce, but not eliminate, corresponding fees.

While NAB is advertising "no monthly account keeping fees", one bank, ANZ, is running advertisements highlighting the remaining fees in the fine print of the NAB contract, including fees for everyday banking tasks with essentially no marginal cost to the bank, such as select transfers between accounts.