This article was originally published on Huffington Post as part of a partnership with their Move Your Money campaign.
Bigger banks were suppose to lower costs for consumers. That was the
promise made repeatedly in 1994 and again in 1999, when Congress
dismantled laws that had long restricted the size and scope of banks,
ushering in a wave of mergers that left the industry dominated by a few
financial giants.
Just seven years after the Glass-Steagall Act was abolished in 1999, the fees consumers were paying on their
checking and savings accounts had skyrocketed, rising from $21 billion to $36 billion. (And these amounts do not include
credit card and ATM fees, which also shot up.)
Today, new data show that big banks still impose much higher costs on their customers than small banks and credit unions do. Not only are fees lower, but several studies have found that smaller
banks and credit unions pay higher interest on savings accounts.
Moving our money to these local institutions could save us billions of dollars a year.
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