Prague - "Come to us, escape ridiculous fees!" proclaims the commercial for ČSOB Bank. "This year our customers save up to 34 million crowns", says Peter van Groos, CEO of GE Money Bank, on their website.
Who wouldn't want to take an advantage of the benefits offered by these banks? Especially for the Czech client who is very sensitive to fees, and who wants to pay as little as possible for the management of his money.
The banks incorporate this into their commercials more and more, partly because all the big banks have updated their product offerings during the last year. At the end of last winter, GE Money Bank introduced "all inclusive" accounts, quickly followed by ČSOB. The last one to come up with this innovation was Česká spořitelna, introducing it a month ago.
All the changes have several common features. Banks included more free services in their account bundles, among them incoming and outgoing transfers or bank machine withdrawals. On average, they also increased monthly charges for the innovative packages.
Thousands of new clients
And banks confirm that clients react to these changes. "At present, the Genius Active Account, offering all banking services with one monthly charge, has over 90 thousand customers", says Eva Chaloupková, spokeswoman for GE Money Bank.
"Starting from July, when the new Personal Account was introduced by Česká spořitelna, it is being used by over 92 thousand clients. The most popular variation is the Standard II for 69 crowns," Kristýna Havligerová, from the press department of Česká spořitelna, explained.
How to choose an account when it is quite difficult to compare them? When transferring banks means changing automatic payments, issuing of new bank cards, and thus a new PIN number? That is a question every client has to face.
For less active clients with just a few monthly transactions, the offer of the big banks ranges from 29 to 40 crowns. More active clients with more demanding requirements pay around 100 crowns and the monthly charge covers items like unlimited number of bank machine withdrawals or electronic transactions.
Be happy or get your money back
At present, bank incentives include "trial accounts". If the client isn't satisfied with the account, the bank waives all fees. At present, two banks have trial accounts on offer.
"Considering the success of the Genius Active account, GE Money Bank can afford as the first bank on the market - to return the monthly fees if the client decides to terminate his account within the first six months. Such an offer gives everyone the chance to learn about its advantages," says Jan Rollo, the director of retail banking at GE Money Bank.
But this is somewhat debatable, since Komerční banka was the first to return money to unsatisfied customers. In January 2005 the bank pledged a "guaranteed level of services" to its clients. If the owner of the account expresses his unhappiness, he can get back up to 12 monthly fees.
"If the client isn't satisfied with his new account, we will waive the fees for the management in case certain established conditions are met," Zdeněk Mojžíšek, executive director for marketing KB told Aktuálně.cz.
That concerns both retail and business accounts. The difference between the banks is that while KB requires that the established conditions are met, GE Money Bank allows its clients to cancel accounts and get their fees back at the counter of any branch.
But each client can ask to get his fee money back just once.
You can find the article in its original Czech version here.
