Would you stay with a bank that charged a fee for a standard current account, asks Guardian Unlimited Money editor Sandra Haurant.
Internet bank First Direct is going to charge current account customers a monthly fee of £10 from February 2007 unless they pay in £1,500 a month, keep a balance of the same amount, or take out another of the bank's products, such as a savings account. The move has provoked concerns that it could mark the end of free banking if others follow.
One reader and First Direct customer wrote to Guardian Unlimited Money: "I am not working at the moment but my salary went into my First Direct account for many years, although I never earned as much as £1,500 per month.
"When I called First Direct this morning to complain, the lady who took the call suggested that I could avoid this charge if I took out one of their other products, but apart from the fact that they aren't very competitive anyway, I no longer wish to deal with a bank which treats its customers in this way."
The move is bound to deter people on lower incomes from joining the bank, since you would need a post-tax salary of £18,000 to cover the minimum funding requirement. Another reader wrote: "Although I am not affected personally by this (as I happen to have a savings account with them), I am outraged that they are yet again, raping the poorest members of society.
"I cannot see any real difference between what they are doing and loansharkism and all the other forms of financial preying on the poorest. As for me, unless they change their modus operandi, I'm off."
But then First Direct says the vast majority of its customers can afford to make the minimum transfer. It says that too many customers have dormant accounts or make very few transactions, and that this is an attempt to encourage them to use First Direct as their primary account. Or, it would seem, to sling their hook.
So is First Direct mistreating customers by introducing fees? The bank would not be the first business to try to attract a certain group, in this case the better-off, rather than aiming to capture the whole of the market. If First Direct's plan is to gain and keep more affluent customers, is it in the wrong or within its commercial rights?
