Outlaw those charges

I have noticed a number of letters regarding the introduction of bank charges.

In the United Kingdom the practice of charging for late payments, etc is considered as a penalty charge, which bears no relation to the cost incurred by the bank.

Our Office of Fair Trading currently has a case against the major banks which is dragging on and on while, as usual, legal fees mount!

Thousands of cases are now pending by customers of banks here, held suspended until this major case is settled. Before this case began, the banks had to pay back all these kind of charges, or if the customer rang them, would refund the charges made. There are various websites which state our case law which has found these kind of charges unreasonable.

I don't know how the law stands in Malta, but what will invariably happen is that if the banks can establish these charges and make people pay them, they will increase them, continue to make bank accounts more complicated and find every reason to add, in the small print, more and more reasons to charge. They managed to get away with it here for some time.

This kind of practice arrived here some years ago from the US, initially on credit cards, and has been used to inflate banking profits ever since. It is another instance of the banking "industry" (as it calls itself) abusing its privileged position in the community. Banks' avaricious practices have caused enormous damage to economies everywhere.

Bank customers of Malta you have been warned; resist now, and get these charges legally outlawed now!