Supervisor of Banks David Zaken today placed price controls on basic bank account fees. The Bank of Israel has announced that the basic track for current accounts, which includes up to one teller-executed activity and up to ten customer-executed activities, will be NIS 10 per month.
"This is an extraordinary step, one that we did not want to take, but we had no choice," said Zaken.
From April 1, banks will be required to show customers prices for the different current account tracks. The Bank of Israel set the items in the tracks, and let the banks set the price. In the past month, the banks presented the track prices to the Bank of Israel, which believes that the price of the basic track is too high, and has therefore decided to intervene and set the price itself.
The banks will also present two other tracks. The first is an expanded track that includes up to 10 teller-executed activities and up to 50 customer-executed activities. This track is mainly intended for small businesses. The Bank of Israel has not intervened in the price for this track. An additional track is the expanded-plus track, in which a bank can offer additional services on top of the regular banking services.
"After we were shown the pricing for the basic track by the various banks, we concluded that it did not meet the objective of the proposal, and we therefore decided to take the extraordinary step and impose supervision on the basic track and set its maximum price. As for the expanded track, we call on the public to take advantage of the fact that, from now on, it will be possible to make a simple and easy comparison between the prices offered, and to test the worthwhileness of joining it," said Zaken.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on March 5, 2014
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