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Re:The curious economics of being ripped off on holiday by u10 on Friday September 27, 2019 @03:42PM (#21095581)
There are non-trivial compliance costs with maintaining accounts, an inactive account can absolutely be a cost for a financial institution. Not to mention that the bank makes a spread on deposits, so an inactive account is generating compliance costs + not generating any revenue (not necessarily the fees).
Re:The curious economics of being ripped off on holiday by AnimalMuppet on Friday September 27, 2019 @03:49PM (#21095640)
> There are non-trivial compliance costs with maintaining accounts, an inactive account can absolutely be a cost for a financial institution.

Sure. But in terms of compliance costs, an active account costs just as much, and perhaps more (if there are compliance costs per transaction, not just per account).

> Not to mention that the bank makes a spread on deposits

They make a spread on money left in the account. But I can leave money in an inactive account, too, and they make just as much money on that.

Re:The curious economics of being ripped off on holiday by vonmoltke on Friday September 27, 2019 @04:56PM (#21096202)
I have not heard of inactive account fees on accounts with a significant amount held in them. Typically, they charge you for keeping too little in there, sometimes regardless of activity.

Edit:

I did a little research. Bank of America has no dormant account fee that I can find. SunTrust does[1]... but only for Florida accounts, for some unknown reason. This may be a jurisdictional thing.

[1] https://www.suntrust.com/content/dam/suntrust/us/en/personal... (page 6)