Australian banks boost bottom lines with higher fees

Australian banks boost bottom lines with higher fees
Tags: Bank / Credit Union, Debit / Credit, Other, Transaction Processing, Trends / Statistics
January 12, 2006

Asia Pulse: Bank fees in Australia keep rising and new fees are introduced all the time. In 2004, Australian households paid a total of $3.4 billion (U.S. $2.5 billion) in banking fees, with about a third of those taken from deposit accounts, according to the Reserve Bank of Australia. The total ATM fees paid to ATM owners in 1999 amounted to $230 million, the most recent RBA figures showed. However, RBA pointed out there was slower growth in fee income in 2005, primarily because of credit card reforms that helped cut banks' merchant-service fee income.