ATM fees hit a record high for the 11th year in a row and checking fees also increased, according to Bankrate.com’s checking study released earlier this month.
The average total cost of an out-of-network ATM withdrawal is $4.69, up 2.6% from $4.57 last year. What’s more, ATM fees are up 55% over the past decade, according to Bankrate.
The average ATM surcharge hit a new record for the 13th year in a row, rising to $2.97 from $2.90 last year. The average fee charged by a consumer’s own bank for going outside the ATM network increased 3% to $1.72, also a new high.
According to Bankrate, consumers in Pittsburgh have the dubious distinction of the highest average out-of-network ATM fee of all the top 25 major metro areas ($5.19). Coming in second was New York (5.14), while Washington D.C and Cleveland were tied ($5.11) and Atlanta ($5.05).
The lowest average ATM fee was found in Dallas ($4.07), Milwaukee ($4.19), San Francisco ($4.23), Seattle ($4.29) and Cincinnati ($4.30).
ATM fees were not the only unexpected fees consumers encountered. After seeing a slight dip in 2016, the average overdraft fee has bounced back to a new high of $33.38, up from $33.04 last year. The most common fee is $35, and the number of financial institutions that increased their fee outnumbered those who lowered it by 7 to 1.
Bank consumers in Philadelphia were burdened with the highest average overdraft fee ($35.30). Ranked the second highest was Baltimore ($35.25), followed by Miami (34.68), New York ($34.63) and San Diego ($34.22),
San Francisco bank customers paid the lowest overdraft fees in the nation, ($31.44 on average), followed by Boston (31.79), Detroit (31.80), St. Louis (31.85) and Seattle, ($32.20).
Thirty-eight percent of non-interest checking accounts are free without stipulation, half as many as in 2009, Bankrate’s study found. An additional 61% of accounts will waive the entire monthly fee (most commonly $12), typically with direct deposit. All told, 99% of non-interest accounts are either free or can become free, up from 97% last year.
Less than 5% of interest checking accounts are free by default. While 77% will waive the service fee (most frequently $25) based upon a minimum balance, the most common threshold is a hefty $10,000, according to Bankrate. An additional 15% have direct deposit as a fee waiver, up from 8% last year. Interest earnings on checking accounts remain scant, with the average unchanged from last year at 0.06%.
Overall, just 2.5% of all accounts assess a fee on debit card transactions at the point-of-sale, ranging from $0.35 – $2. In all cases, this is only for PIN-debit transactions.
Bankrate’s study included a survey group that consisted of a total of 10 banks and thrifts in each of 25 large U.S. markets; one interest and one non-interest account, as well as their associated ATM and debit card fee policies were surveyed from 247 financial institutions offering checking accounts; 241 interest and 240 non-interest accounts were surveyed between July 27 – August 18, 2017.
