The Consumer Complaints Blog

I’ve been meaning to do a quick post comparing banking fees in Canada and the UK ever since a reader posted this complaint about TD Bank.

Following a barrage of responses and some that were obviously TD employees trying to pretend they’re not (a couple got irate) I think it’s now time to post. (You may be asking how I know that they’re TD employees. I tracked the IP address down and it was coming from TD.)

BBC News recently ran a story about how customers around the world are getting fed up with banking fees. It’s interesting to see how other consumers and governments are talking and doing something about the problem.

Not so much in Canada eh? Well anyway. On to the comparison. I’ll keep it short and sweet.

The Showdown

UK Banks:

Barklays.
– No Service Fees
– Online Banking
– Telephone Banking
– Instant Access to Cheques

HSBC UK
– Free Everyday Banking
– Free Internet Banking
– Free Telephone Banking

Lloyds TSB
– No Monthly Fee Accounts

Halifax
– Their site is kind of messy but I think they offer a free account somewhere.

I won’t bother listing all of them because you get the picture. If you just do your daily banking and don’t use overdraft, you don’t have to pay a monthly fee in the UK.

Canadian Banks

I could go over all the rates and so on with the Canadian banks but why bother? The only bank that offers free daily banking in Canada is PC Financial. While they’re good for most things, they suck if you have a problem or need anything more than day-to-day stuff because they have no branches and their in-store kiosks (and the people manning them) are useless. Well that’s not totally fair. Some are nice but I ran into a few that were just total idiots so it left a bad taste in my mouth.

In 2006 RBC had a profit of $4.7 billion. Hold on. I think that some of you weren’t paying attention. I said $4,700,000,000. Profit!!! Just think about that for a minute. After RBC has paid all its employees, the rent on the buildings, maintenance on their computers, electricity and everything else, they walked away with $4.7 BILLION.

Holy shit can’t they afford to do the average person the supreme favour of not charging them a monthly fee? But I digress. Maybe we should pay money for the privilege of us handing over our hard earned dollars so some fat cats can have even more than they already have. I’m all for capitalism but come on. We let the banks do this to us. We’re not just lazy and stupid. We’re obviously useless.

So that’s that. You can go through the various websites and compare for yourself. When will the banking revolution come to Canada? Judging by some of the comments on the TD complaint, not too soon.