Silly criteria to qualify for free banking -why?

Is it only me who finds these criteria stupid?

I have had a current account for several years that has NEVER been overdrawn and I recently chatted to my bank about availing of free banking as I had seen them advertise it.

It seems that it is no problem to get it, as long as you do 2 transactions per quarter such as online money transfers or using their ATM to take money out.

Problem is I have no need to do any of these things. I just lodge money every month and thats it - its my mortgage account and has limited transactions on it (mortgage/car insurance/house insurance). I do not use the account to do any daily transactions out of, so I would have to make the effort to do these 2 transactions they require per quarter.

I appreciate some will say that its easy to do 2 transactions per quarter, but why should I have to? I don't exactly strain their systems every year do I? I lodge money every month for my mortgage/insurances and it comes out. Thats it. And I usually add extra so that my account grows a little.

So why can't they just give me free banking for free, instead of insisting on silly rules?

Lots of banks have few or no silly criteria for free banking. Check out www.itsyourmoney.ie for more info and consider switching to one that doesn't have silly rules.

Same as the mobile phone company deals - the object of any offer is to devise a system that (1) is effective in attracting customers, and (2) is sufficiently obtuse that only a minor element of customers will ever qualify.

Thanks for the replies.

Makes for interesting reading. If so many of them provide totally free banking then how come someone as big as AIB can't.

Because they make a good enough living off people who do pay charges and who don't switch?

RMCF said:

Problem is I have no need to do any of these things. I just lodge money every month and thats it.

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Do you not spend any money so cos I'd like to learn that trick? Have been living hand to mouth since January...

becky said:

Do you not spend any money so cos I'd like to learn that trick? Have been living hand to mouth since January...

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I do spend of course.

But I live on the border and work in the North, having moved from the North a few years back. As a result a lot of my banking and money transactions are still done in the UK so to speak.

In the south I really only use my account for mortgage and the 2 insurances I mentioned.

I do all my shopping in the North, as its much more competitively priced. I find the RoI a rip off compared to it.

So switch to a more competitive bank. For example Halifax offer transaction fee free banking AND pay 10% interest on current account credit balances of up to €2K. Could it be that you find RoI consumer prices a "rip-off" (I presume you actually mean "more expensive"?) because the same inertia and lack of discretion seemingly affecting your choice of bank/financial products also affects your shopping habits?

I think the point of them is to incentivise preferred behaviour by the customer. They don't want you coming into the branch to deal with transactions, so they throw out a carrot of free banking to encourage you to do these transactions online/on the phone.

Halifax looks too good to be true until you actually try to open an account with them.
Halifax will want to know the colour of your underwear and what you had for breakfast before they will even consider your request to open an account with them.

bond-007 said:

Halifax looks too good to be true until you actually try to open an account with them.
Halifax will want to know the colour of your underwear and what you had for breakfast before they will even consider your request to open an account with them.

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I had no problem opening several accounts with them.

You must have met their very strict criteria.

ClubMan said:

So switch to a more competitive bank. For example Halifax offer transaction fee free banking AND pay 10% interest on current account credit balances of up to €2K. Could it be that you find RoI consumer prices a "rip-off" (I presume you actually mean "more expensive"?) because the same inertia and lack of discretion seemingly affecting your choice of bank/financial products also affects your shopping habits?

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No.

I have tried shopping on both sides of the border and the RoI cannot compete with the North imho. There are far better deals in the Northern supermarkets compared to those available in the South.

Thats fact. End of.

RMCF - I agree their rules are silly. We had the same discussion as all our transactions are set up by DD & they wanted us to do X amount online. He acually suggested I just transfers €10 to & from another account to qualify. So we meet with the manager, said how silly it was & if we didn't qualify for free banking, we'd take our money elsewhere. Haven't paid a penny in charges since!

RMCF said:

No.

I have tried shopping on both sides of the border and the RoI cannot compete with the North imho. There are far better deals in the Northern supermarkets compared to those available in the South.

Thats fact. End of.

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Fair enough. Sort of irrelevant to the vast majority of people in RoI though.