Eight months after it caused an uproar over its decision to increase fees for its personal and business banking services, RBC Royal Bank announced yesterday that, effective March 27, it would be introducing a number of new fees and increasing some of its existing fees.
The Canadian-owned bank published a new personal banking schedule of fees and charges on its website. The new schedule includes an $8 deposit fee for what the bank describes as day-to-day banking, day-to-day savings, enhanced savings and student banking customers. The bank's schedule does not make clear whether this new deposit fee includes ATM and salary deposits or if the fee pertains to only in-branch deposits.
Deposits by savers over 60 and those defined as young savers remain free, as do deposits made by VIP banking customers and those who enjoy RBC Royal's no-limit banking.
Deposits in the bank's high interest bearing eSavings accounts will now pay $14 to deposit.
According to the Central Bank's comparative schedule of fees and charges as at June 30, 2016, RBC Royal Bank charged no fee on in-branch deposit transactions (teller) up to the middle of last year.
The bank also increased the monthly service charge on its day-to-day banking accounts to $25, which includes five free cheque transactions, but customers in this category will pay $3.50 per transaction thereafter. The Central Bank schedule indicated that the maintenance fee on savings accounts at RBC Royal Bank up to the middle of last year was $15 a month.
Young savers pay no monthly service charges for keeping their monies at RBC Royal Bank, while for those 60 and over there is no service charge if they maintain a balance of $15,000 or more.
RBC Royal Bank also increased from $7 to $8 the cost of in-branch withdrawals and other customer-generated debit transactions for many of its day-to-day customers. But this service remains free to its VIP customers, its 60 plus customers and its young savers.
Customers of the bank face a new cheque book distribution fee of $25 (if distributed by TTPost) and a fee of $30 if the bank holds their cheque books for more than 30 days.
The bank also alerted its customers that some of them will be required to pay a new fee of $4.50 a month for the processing of their account statements.
RBC Royal customers as well face a new international transaction charge of 0.25 per cent of the transaction amount on any foreign purchase made with their credit card. They are also likely to pay higher late payment and over-limit fees on their credit cards come March 27.