Re:Square Cash
by takluyver on Tuesday October 15, 2013 @10:50PM
(#6557750)
Having recently moved from the UK to the US, I was quite shocked at the state of US banking. In the UK we can transfer money for free, use many ATMs free (not just the bank's own), we get free chequebooks, and there are plenty of accounts with no monthly fees. My US bank has a whole list of charges, and it's not made up by higher interest rates.
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UK banks do the same, they just charge their fees to people who go overdrawn instead.
There's no such thing as "free banking" in the UK
As another person who has lived in both places, banking is a lot freer in the UK. Yes, UK banks charge overdraft fees - but so do US banks. Most US banks will charge you to send you replacement checkbooks; many will even charge you a monthly fee to maintain the account. There are notable exceptions, but they don't have mass market buy-in.
I moved to Canada (from UK) and similar situation. Monthly fees, X amount of transactions per month, fee to withdraw from other banks (although we had this in UK too for a few years), fee to pay someone else money whether in the same bank or not and even via the internet.
I tried to deposit a cheque into my landlords account and the bank teller would not accept it, had to be cash or bankers draft - I presume because they may have a limit on the number of transactions per month and anything over wold cost them additional money. I found it very bizarre.