What are the five most “bizarre” fees in Portuguese banking, according to Deco?

While limiting or even ending the collection of fees is being discussed in Parliament In terms of home loans, Deco Proteste studied the prices of 17 banks and found five fees, which it called “armed robberies” on consumers’ wallets, either because they were unreasonable or because they were proportional.

The first commission is photocopies, in case of a request to reproduce a document stored in the bank. Banks vary in this cost, some have to pay per service, per page or per sheet. In the case of a three-page document, taking into account the various types of fees, the average amount payable is 19.13 euros, i.e. 6.38 euros per page. Only ActivoBank and Banco CTT do not charge for the service.

The second commission is coin deposits. While the counting is usually done by machines, customers spend an average of €7.14 to deposit coins, according to Deco. A deposit in more than 25 currencies entitles you to a minimum fee of €2.6 and only Banco Best and BNI Europa charge no fees for this type of deposit.

Abanca, ActivoBank, Montepio, Caixa Geral de Depósitos (CGD) and BCP exempt up to 25 currencies from this fee. On the other hand, BBVA charges EUR 7.8 for any deposit up to 99 currencies, to which EUR 5.2 is added if there are more than 100 currencies.

The third fee is for cash withdrawals at the cash desk, which cost an average of 6.97 euros. Once again, BBVA is the most expensive bank, claiming 15.6 euros. Followed by Atlântico Europa and Novo Banco, which charge almost 13 euros for bank branch withdrawals. Banco Best and Abanca charge less than 4 euros, while BNI Europa charges nothing from customers.

The fourth fee is requesting a duplicate bank statement, such as in situations where, as Deku explains, the customer in question “doesn’t use home banking because the statement was lost because they need to submit larger transactions.” six months”, the order costs an average of 14.4 euros.

With the highest cost at BNI Europa, which asks for €26, BiG asks for €24.6, while BPI, Abanca, Caixa Crédito Agrícola and BCP charge less than €10.

In fifth place is the change of account holder, whether due to “divorce, death of one of the owners or upon reaching the age of majority”, each change costs an average of 8.14 euros. The banks that charge the highest amount of this fee are Atlântico Europa (€15.6), CGD (€9.36) and Bankinter (€8.61). Only BBVA does not charge anything.

The latter is one of the proposals discussed in Parliament, in particular the change of the account holder in case of death or reaching the age of majority.

“Deco Proteste hopes that the current discussion in Parliament will put an end to some of these oddities. If it is legal to charge fees for actual service rendered, it is difficult to justify the cost of photocopying a document held by a bank, charging a delivery fee. coins, or pay almost 70 euros per year for account maintenance, as well as contracts until 2021 continue to bear the specified installment fee”, can also be read in the document of the consumer protection organization.