JPMorgan, the largest retail bank in the United States, is issuing a warning to their customers that they might have to start paying for their checking accounts.
According to Marianne Lake, CEO of consumer and community banking at JPMorgan Chase, proposed regulatory rules capping overdraft fees and late fees will prompt the bank to pass the resulting cost of business to its clients.
Lake believes that the rest of the banking industry will likely do the same.
“The changes will be broad, sweeping, and significant,” Lake told The Wall Street Journal. “The people who will be most impacted are the ones who can least afford to be, and access to credit will be harder to get.”
According to the proposed changes by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, there would be a cap of $3 for overdrafts and a cap of $8 on late payment fees on credit cards. Additionally, banks would have to limit their debit card fees while also being required to hold larger reserves.
“It is not practical for many of the services to be free if we won’t be able to draw from those profit pools,” Lake added.
Experts, on the other hand, believe JPMorgan’s warning is simply a tactic to discourage the proposal from becoming law. They also point out that this isn’t the first time such warnings were made without being followed by concrete actions.