They’re quite common across banks with a physical presence. Especially the overdraft and insufficient funds fees. Some will take it farther; for example, Santander charges $35 as an initial overdraft fee and a further $35 “sustained overdraft” fee on US accounts if you stay in overdraft for more than five business days (imagine if they tried that in the UK). One of the biggest selling points of challenger banks like Simple was that they wouldn’t charge you such onerous fees for overdrafting your account or if they had to refuse an ACH debit for insufficient funds.
That being said, the above is for what would be called “unarranged” overdraft in the UK. Some banks in the US also offer arranged overdraft facilities but unlike a lot of UK overdraft facilities, charge both a fixed fee and interest. For example, my account at BMO-Harris (regional bank in the Midwest) has a $1000 overdraft facility that charges 18% APR and $10 each time I need to dip into it. I also have a $500 overdraft facility at a local credit union that charges 12% APR and $4 per use. And cheaper still than both of those if the need arises and I know in advance is to withdraw cash from my Barclaycard Ring, at 8% APR and $1 cash advance fee (it’s also a backup source of funds when I travel; I keep it and a couple other credit cards tucked away in my luggage in case my wallet is stolen).
If you read BBVA’s fine print, you’ll know why. They are a predatory bank. They even state in their documents that they will charge a secondary fee for NSF fees, and (like a community credit union named Rivermark) they will charge you a fee for every pending charge, no matter if it’s posted. That’s where the secondary fee comes in as well; once an item posts to the account (bank A actually presents the charge to your bank) you’ll be charged another fee, if not another NSF fee as well. If you look deep enough, there are transaction fees as well for some items.
RUN from BBVA if you value your money and, like my husband and I, refuse to support predatory companies.
We touched on this earlier in another simple thread marking their end here:
I’m curious to know, where, if anywhere, folks have found suitable refuge. What options they’ve tried, their thoughts, how they compare to Monzo. Whether they’ve tried Monzo and what they think?
I’ve been loosely following breadcrumbs on the internet over the past several months and been discussing it with a few of my friends back in the US, and one name that kept popping up was One Finance. That’s a new name for me that I’ve never come across before now. Seems quite a few folks are moving things over to them, but that nothing really seems to fill the gap in Simple’s wake. I’ve also learned they have access to Emma in the US too, but they apparently don’t cut it either.
There have been mentions of a budgeting app called DAS Budget too (mentioned in the thread I linked to). I much prefer the wording they went with to get around Simple’s Safe-to-spend trademark than the one Monzo went with. Free-to-spend just feels better than left-to-spend for what the value is trying to portray.
