The Status of Free Checking Accounts

Is Free Checking a Thing of the Past? 

There is a lot of speculation about the state of free checking accounts. Everywhere you look there are articles foreseeing the end to free checking as we now know it. The greatest argument is that we can't have our cake and eat it too. There is a high probability that ads urging you to open a free checking account are going to be less and less common. There is a high likelihood that free checking accounts may only exist online. Already there is talk of several big banks already making the change in policy to accommodate banking fees on checking accounts once considered to be free checking. Does this mean that free online banking will also be a thing of the past?

It all started with banking reform and the curbing of excessive fee practices by banks and credit unions. Since banks are in the business to make money, they will always have to find a way to make more money for their stockholders. If you take away one stream of revenue or income from a bank, they will simply have to find a new way to make that money. In this case fees from credit cards, overdraft fees, late fees, debit card transaction fees, and other banking fees are assumed to be some of the reasons that banks were able to offer free checking accounts to the masses.

To be totally honest, free checking will still exist in one form or another, but by and large, not in the same manner or capacity that we may have all grown accustomed to over the last several years. You see, in the past just about anyone was able to open a checking account with a mere $50 dollars and reap the benefits of a free checking account. While that may be a thing of the past, free checking can and will still exist. The major difference will be the ability of the account holder to maintain a certain amount of money in their checking account. Also, in addition to having to maintain a much higher minimum balance in your checking account, you may also have to follow a lot more stringent rules in order to keep that checking account free.

There are some banks that waive monthly checking fees if you use your debit card on a more regular basis. This may come as a reward to those who maintain a lot of activity in their bank accounts. If a banking customer is not able to, or chooses not to use their debit in a certain month, they would be charged a fee on their checking account, thus rendering that checking account a fee-based checking account for that month. If in the months thereafter the bank customer reinitiates the use of their debit card, then the fee-based checking account would once again revert to a free checking account for as long as the customer continues to follow the terms of the free checking agreement.

In essence, while the free checking is as we may have known it may be disappearing, there are still rays of hope that a modified version will still exist. There are still free checking account online offers that seem to exist and there is hope that these online checking accounts will continue to stay free, but only time will tell. If you still want to open a checking account, you might have to do a lot more research than you may have had to in the past.