Banks and banking

[MotherBear]

Bank customers often too scared to complain, says watchdog
5.00pm Wednesday November 29, 2006
By Adam Bennett

The public is often too "terrified" of their bank to complain about the service they receive, says the banking watchdog in new findings out today. The banking watchdog's annual report was released today and it reveals a slight rise in complaints for the 2005-2006 year to 774.

Of the five major banks, Westpac continued to be source of the most cases, followed by the National Bank, BNZ, ANZ and ASB. The figures largely reflected the banks' relative market share. The number of cases from National Bank rose sharply while those from sister bank ANZ fell significantly.

The report found that many bank staff did not know their company's complaints procedure. Commenting on the release of the report at 5pm today, Banking Ombudsman Liz Brown said for the average bank customer, "it can be a fairly terrifying experience to be thinking about making a complaint".

The report found that over the 2005-2006 year, the total number of cases received by the Banking Ombudsman rose slightly to 774. "It is likely that the scheme's inaccessibility to many bank customers is a factor in the current low level of complaints," the report said.

More here .

And another article about banks.

[MotherBear]

Watchdog unable to fix 'dubious' banking fee
Saturday February 10, 2007
By Derek Cheng

Bank customers are powerless to prevent banks from charging dubious fees for minor transactions, unless the fee is completely unreasonable, the Banking Ombudsman says.

Liz Brown said yesterday: "If I was faced with something that was beyond all bounds of reasonableness, I might be able to take a closer look at it."

One such case involved fees being charged customers who had already discharged their mortgages.

"We became involved, at which point the bank decided to review its practices and make some changes."

More here .

[MotherBear]

NZ banks doing better job than those in Australia, say customers
5:00AM Saturday February 24, 2007

New Zealand's five major banks are outpacing Australia's top four in customer satisfaction, a regular survey says.

Research organisation Roy Morgan said in the second half of last year, satisfaction with the five major banks was 78.4 per cent.

This compared with the average 69.6 per cent rating achieved by the big four Australian banks - ANZ, Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA), National Australia Bank (NAB) and Westpac.

Roy Morgan said the difference between the two countries was particularly stark when comparing the Commonwealth Bank of Australia (66.5 per cent) and New Zealand's ASB Bank (83.4 per cent).

New Zealand's major banks are all Australian-owned. ANZ and National Bank is owned by ANZ, ASB by CBA, BNZ owned by NAB and Westpac in both countries.

Among the New Zealand banks, ASB was the top-rated, with an 83.4 per cent satisfaction level.

It was followed by the National Bank at 82.6 per cent, the BNZ at 80 per cent, the ANZ at 74.1 per cent, and Westpac at 72.3 per cent.
- NZPA

From here .

[MotherBear]

Banks probed on credit card fees
9:00AM Thursday May 03, 2007

The Commerce Commission has begun investigating banks over the fees they charge for late payments on credit card bills.

A spokeswoman said levies were being checked against the Credit Contracts and Consumer Finance Act, which says late payment fees must be "reasonable".

Payments have soared from about $10 seven years ago to to $49 today, on top of nearly 20 per cent interest rates for most credit cards. Most banks appear to charge about $25 a month for missed minimum payments.

From here .