Banking Tips: Know your bank fees

By BILL BONAN II, Peoples National Bank

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It is so important in today’s economy to know what banking products you have and use on a daily basis. What I mean specifically is always know what kind of fees that your bank charges on the accounts that you have.

Every bank is different. There are some banks that have free checking, free online bill pay, free internet banking, etc., like PNB does, but other banks charge for those services. They don’t send you a bill; they usually debit the money right out of your account. So you won’t know it until the money is out of your account.

Also, just because it says free checking account, you need to know the rules of that account so that you make sure it stays free.

Sometimes there are “Dormant Fee and Inactivity Fees.”  A dormant fee is a charge to your account if you have don’t complete at least one transaction every 6 months out of that account.  An inactivity fee is a fee that is charged when you don’t use your debit card within a period of 90 days. These charges vary from bank to bank.  As a rule each bank does have these charges, so make sure that you ask the banker who opens your account.

Also, it is crucial to balance your account.

Each account holder is usually given overdraft privileges. Each bank has a product similar to this. It might be called something else, but operates the same.  When you have overdraft privileges or overdraft protection, the bank will pay checks up to a certain amount that come into your account.  An example of this would be if you had $50 in your account and you write a $100 check, the bank goes ahead and pays the check, and you would be overdrawn by $50. This service is not free.

Remember when you overdraw you are borrowing money from the bank. So, very much like interest, the banks charge a fee for the use of their money.  This is a convenience for the customer.  The fees can be anywhere from $27 to $40 per item, depending on your bank.

It is just a good practice to know everything about your account.  The banker is supposed to disclose these fees, but sometimes these fees do not get disclosed.