With the renewed focus on fee income now that federal regulators are for the first time tallying the revenue stream, it was particularly interesting to note the tacit admission on Friday that its online banking platform errs on occasion in charging fees.
On Friday, BofA, the nation’s second-largest bank, quietly and subtly amended its online banking disclosures to its customers. The bank added the following line to the disclosure:
Under our Online Banking Guarantee, if we fail to process a payment in accordance with your properly completed instructions, we will reimburse you for any late-payment-related fees.
The presumption here is that Bank of America, in fact, fails to process bill payments in “accordance with … properly completed instructions.” It is unclear under what circumstances such payment failures can occur. The legal disclosure discusses the need for its customers to “be in good standing at least four bank business days before the payment due date.” Presumably, the determination of a customer’s “good standing” can get fouled up.
This was the first change to the bank’s legal notification — officially called the “Online Banking and Transfers Outside Bank of America Service Agreement and Electronic Disclosure” — since last November.
Last week, SNL Financial reported that the three biggest banks — JPMorgan Chase & Co., Wells Fargo & Co. and Bank of America — collected a total of $1.14 billion in overdraft fees and related service charges for just the first three months of 2015. SNL reported that around 600 banks disclosed to regulators that they collected $2.51 billion in overdraft fees last quarter.