AIB change Conditions for Free Banking

L

Lightning

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AIB are changing the conditions for free banking from May 28th 2012.

The new condition is:
"Maintain a minimum daily credit balance daily of 2,500 EUR each day for a full fee quarter".

The fee quarter ends on the last business day, that is a Friday, in February, May, August and November.
 
So thats the end of free banking? Great, I will have to start paying real attention now to how to reduce fees.
I have a second current account that always gets hit with charges but because I dont use it much, its usually only less than €5 charges per quarter.
 
That is ridiculous. Hopefully BOI don't do the same. It's currently handy enough to just do 9 online transfers a quarter.
 
With BOI you have to receive €3k into your account each quarter (but not maintain a minimum balance) and do 9 online bank transfers each quarter.

See here: http://www.askaboutmoney.com/showthread.php?t=21774

Their online banking is also fairly good. I have never used the AIB online banking. BOI don't have a mobile app yet though, which I see that AIB recently released.
 
Unbelievable, the one good thing they had left and now it's all gone. Time to find ways of cutting down the fees then!
 
I have accounts with AIB for 20 years, I don't fancy switching banks or keeping 2.5k in current account. My AIB current account charges are about 80euro pa but refunded each quarter under free banking. 2.5k in their online savings ac gets me about 50euro pa interest after DIRT, so the end of AIB free banking for me means about 30 euro pa cost which is reasonable.
 
I think its dreadful telling people over 60 to apply for an AIB Advantage account to avail of free banking and then leading on to say the following:

"To avail of these additional benefits you must advise staff at the time of each transaction that you are an AIB Advantage customer. The additional financial benefits are only available on face to face transactions undertaken
at the branch and cannot be applied for in any transactions undertaken at ATM, AIB Self-Service Banking or through any other electronic means."

They are also applying the same face to face transactions rule to student accounts.

They are cutting back on staff, have closed branches and now introduce this stupid rule.
 
Account must be in credit of 2,500 for a full Quarter in a year, correct?
So are they debiting the banking cost first, and then - provided u meet the conditions outlined - are they refunding?
 
So who has the most reasonable free banking conditions at the moment? My coworker is recommending Ulster Bank...

Gondola, I checked my account and the refund seems to come through before the debit.

ETA Checking out the link about now, and reviewing my options!
 
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After reading through the latest AIB Fees & charges, I don't see any mention of joint accounts. Does anybody know if a joint current account will need to have 2500 in the account at all times as well?

Cheers
 
It's not so easy to switch current accounts these days. This is turning into a competition problem just like mortgages. Might be time for the strongest and safest credit unions to be allowed access to the market if banks aren't willing to facilitate new customers. Having said that, the days of free banking are fast coming to a close for everyone. It only works when banks make money off other provided services to customers like loans. Those days have gone.
 
I don't see the point of free banking. If the bank offers you something cheap, they are making it up some other way.

Take the thousands of people who switched to Ptsb to avail of free banking. As they were with ptsb, they probably bought other services from them. If they took out a variable rate mortgage with them, they are now paying around €300 per month more than average. That is €300 per month, every month.

I have looked at my AIB account, which would be busy enough.

Account maintenance| €4.50
43 automated/self service transactions at 20 cents each |€8.60
14 paper/staff assisted transactions @ 30 cents each |€4.20
Total for a quarter | €17.30
Rough annual cost: €70

Steiner above estimates his fees at €80 per annum, so it's probably representative enough.

That is not a high cost for supplying a current account service including access to cash machines.

I don't know what the fuss is about.

(And I will be saying that on the 6.1 News on RTE TV tonight)


I would much prefer if the prices charged were linked to the costs incurred.
 
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