SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- The sweeping financial regulation signed into law Wednesday by President Barack Obama may have a direct and visible effect on millions of bank account holders in the U.S.
The new rules may end the era of free checking accounts that was pioneered in the previous decade by banks like Washington Mutual WAMUQ +16.98% , some analysts say.
PF Minute: Banks impose new fees
Lawmakers have been busy ramping up consumer protections on a variety of financial products, but are we saving any money yet? Already banks are fighting back with new fees and other changes to your accounts. MarketWatch's Andrea Coombes looks at some of the changes banks are making to account terms and fees. Bank of America Corp. BAC +0.75% is launching a new account in August that will be free if customers bank online and use ATMs, but will cost $8.95 a month if they want a paper statement and use a teller for routine transactions, The Wall Street Journal reported last week.
More big banks will likely follow the lead of Wells and Bank of America because the financial reforms limit the amount of fees they can charge and the way they levy them.
"That's going to be pretty common across the board. Lots of big banks are starting to do that," said Jeff LaFrance, an analyst at Gradient Analytics, in an interview Wednesday. "New financial regulations are taking away their ability to make profits elsewhere on deposit accounts, so they're charging fees."
One big change is the regulation of so-called interchange fees on debit cards, which Bank of America recently warned could knock $1.8 billion to $2.3 billion off annual revenue generated by its Global Card Services business, starting in the third quarter of 2011. Read about Bank of America's estimate.
Banks have been experimenting with new pricing techniques as the financial-reform bill worked its way through Congress, Richard Bove, an analyst at Rochdale Securities, wrote in a recent note to investors.
"The simplest is to place a monthly maintenance charge on each account," he said. "The amount might vary from $8 per month to $12 per month."
Bove says this extra cost could force some poorer depositors to shut their bank accounts, leading to the loss of roughly 14 million accounts. These people may struggle to find other more affordable bank accounts, he added.
"This is a very rough estimate but it is likely to be low not high," Bove wrote. "This bill is going to harm the very people it supposedly helps."
Wells Fargo Chief Executive John Stumpf also criticized the new financial-reform bill on Wednesday, although he didn't specifically address checking accounts and fees.
"We remain concerned that some aspects of regulatory reform may have unintended negative impacts for America's financial system, consumers and businesses," Stumpf said in a statement.
Alistair Barr is a reporter for MarketWatch in San Francisco.
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