FirstBank wraps a bus in a giant ad promoting free checking and tops it off with a 25-foot long propeller on top.
The ad reads, “Heli-Skiing, now as affordable as Free Checking.”
Golden1 Free Checking Two Panel Brochure
California’s largest credit union, Golden 1, continues promoting its free checking account. During March, 2012, a simple two-panel marketing flyer or buckslip is being distributed inside the branches in brochure holders located at the teller windows. While this is great news, the words “FREE CHECKING’’ are the smallest words on the front of the flyer as you can see below. And the words “Zero,” “Zip,” and “Zilch,” are not carried forward and explained on the back panel. This particular financial institution has, for years, had its own in-house creative agency which accounts for much of its mediocre creative like the piece shown here. It is very important that banks and credit unions offering free checking continue aggressively marketing the account through multiple marketing channels.
Are Consumers Revolting With Free Checking Ending At Wells Fargo?
Two weeks ago, Wells Fargo said it will impose a $7 monthly account fee in six states, including Connecticut, effectively ending free checking. Just days earlier, it was disclosed that BofA was testing new fees in three states as a prelude to imposing fees on basic checking accounts.
Kim Reid of Hartford, who opened a Wells Fargo account about a year ago, would be charged the new fee — and Reid said it would make her think twice about keeping her account at the bank.
“I don’t think they should charge you,” Reid said. “They already have your account and your money.”
Reid isn’t against all fees. If you bounce a check, you should get charged a penalty. You’ve spent money that you don’t have. But a fee for just having an account, “that’s just wrong.”
But that mindset is changing, they say, especially after last fall’s controversy over the debit card fee that reached as high as the White House.
“What happened last fall after the president talked about the truly unfair, $5 debit card fee, there was a real change in consumer behavior,” Ed Mierzwinski, the consumer program director at the U.S. Public Interest Research Group in Washington, said. “Before the Bank of America mess, the banks’ conventional wisdom was they could get away with raising fees, not anymore.”
One customer-service expert believes that Wells will lose thousands of customers over the decision to charge the $7 fee.
“When you tell young people and those without money you want to increase the cost of using Wells Fargo $84 a year JUST to use your checking account, it is time to switch banks,” John Tschohl, president of the Service Quality Institute, which develops customer service training programs, said in an email to The Courant.
The decision by the large national banks to impose the checking account fee — while rekindling the long-running controversy over new and increasing fees — does not come as much of a surprise to some banking experts.
The challenge for banks is to “find a way to make [customers] more profitable without alienating them.”
Banks may be less willing to back down on checking fees, unlike when BofA scrapped the debit card fee. The argument with the debit card was that consumers were paying just to get their money. With checking, the bank can argue that it is processing checks and other transactions for the customer, Porter said.
The trick, Porter said, is persuading the customer that there is enough value being provided to justify the fee.
That value might be in the sprawling branch and ATM networks maintained by the big banks, although they existed before without the fee.
Safe Cash Rewards With Free Checking
Safe Credit Union advertises in the newspaper with the ad copy:
Thanks to SAFE Credit Union, you can get cash rewards on purchases you make at your favorite retailers. Use your SAFE Visa Debit Card to make your purchases, and you can start racking up the rewards! With Cash Rewards, its SAFE to say that shopping pays! Learn more at safecu.org.
Ally Bank Ad Offers Free Checking Without Mentioning Free Checking
Talk about confusing the consumer. Ally Bank offers a free checking account that pays interest – yes, pays interest. The problem is that it failed to name its account Ally Free Checking. Yet, we see in this magazine ad in the February 24, 2012 issue of The Week magazine, Ally manages to use the powerful marketing word “Free” in the headline. Why not simply call it Free Checking or Ally Bank Free Checking or Ally Free Checking? What would possess a bank to offer free checking while naming it something else?
