etail Financial Services
There are two parts to this division: retail banking, which manages checking and savings accounts at over 5,200 branches nationwide, and consumer lending for mortgages, home equity lines of credit (HELOCs), auto loans, and student loans. The first part of the business did well, producing $970 million of net income, through wider deposit spreads (we’ll talk about this in a minute), and “higher deposit-related fees.” Banks are ratcheting up fees in retail banking to obscene levels, and engaging in predatory practices like pushing consumers into overdrafts and charging them a small fortune in usury interest. They are doing this because they can, and because they have to.
What gets me is the author says they have to. In essence, the implication is the company cannot survive without trying things as they did with us with our last payment, and it has become a practice so common they don't even have to hide the fact that they engage in such things any more. In other words, exploitation of others to their detriment is understood as part of the game. What does that say about our society?
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