RBC backs off new fee after clients protest
Bank had planned to charge customers for making loan, credit card, mortgage payments
A retired United Church minister who went public with complaints about the Royal Bank of Canada’s plan to impose charges for making credit card, loan and mortgage payments says he’s gratified and a little surprised that the bank is backing off.
“It’s amazing our little puff of protest” has been a catalyst in forcing the country’s largest financial institution to modify its policy, said Gordon Murray from his home in Glen Margaret, N.S. Along with his wife, Elaine, Murray told the CBC in April that the changes were hard to justify.
“It appeared to be double-dipping when I saw that we could be paying on top of our interest a fee for making our mortgage payments,” Murray said in a phone interview Friday.
“What caught my eye is a lot of the fees that are instituted were zero prior to this notice coming out, and now they are between $1 to $5 for regular payments.”
Earlier on Friday, RBC said it had reversed its decision to include transactions such as investment contributions, and loan, mortgage and credit card payments in a customer’s monthly limit of free debit transactions.
The change means the payments will not count toward the cap, and trigger charges if the maximum is exceeded.
“We are listening to our clients,” the Toronto-based bank said in an email. Spokesman Andrew Block called the impact of cancelling the changes that were planned for June1modest, since “most of our clients are already in accounts with unlimited transactions.”
RBC has been planning new or higher fees for a variety of accounts and transactions, including children’s accounts, and is increasing the age eligibility for seniors’ rebates to 65 from 60.
Along with RBC, TD Bank introduced revised rates on April 1, while CIBC and Scotiabank announced changes to account terms earlier in the year.
Andrew Cash, the federal NDP critic for consumer protection and MP for Davenport, said the RBC move is a positive step that could influence other leading banks. “We’re going to keep up the pressure,” he said, adding that he may bring up the bank fees issue in question period when the Parliamentary session resumes next week.
Cash said a wave of bank-fee changes could amount to hundreds of dollars in new fees, calling the charges a form of negative option billing since many bank customers are unaware of pending hikes.
And while Canada’s Big Five banks have agreed to codes of conduct governing their dealings with clients, he said self regulation “just doesn’t cut it” and that binding rules are needed.
Cash also said banks should have been included in a ban on pay-to-pay fees for wireless and Internet providers that was unveiled by the federal Conservatives last year.