Executive Summary

Executive summary

Customers still don’t like fees. And they don’t see value behind them.

Our inaugural 2021 report uncovered something unexpected: many bank customers take a dim view of service fees in part because some don’t see banking as a service. This attitude has not shifted measurably in our 2022 survey, and it reflects an ongoing challenge for bank marketers: how best to communicate to customers the value they receive in exchange for the fees they are charged.

Also, how do banks strike an optimal balance between fees customers deem “more fair” (penalty fees like late charges and overdraft penalties) and those they see as “less fair” (service fees for tellers and mobile banking).
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McGuffin Creative Group’s 2022 banking fees report is our second annual survey of banking customer sentiment about the money they’re charged for the products and services they receive.

Methodology:

This year’s survey of 2,000 U.S. adults with a bank account posed a series of questions to gauge respondents’ attitudes toward a range of different bank fees, how well their bank communicates their fees and how they view their banking relationship as compared with other common service relationships, from cable and internet companies to utilities.

"Never thought of a bank account as a service, more of a necessity."

Surveyed Bank Consumer

Key Takeaway:

With nearly a third of customers saying fees made them consider changing banks and older, more desirable customers holding the most negative view of fees, bank marketers need to think differently about how, when and where they communicate fees.

Banking fees have a big impact on customers’ relationships with their banks.

Only half of customers view banking as a service.
Customers’ perceptions of fees vary, with some fee types considered fairer than others.
Nearly one in three customers report considering changing banks due to fees.
Just because a type of fee is infrequent, doesn’t mean it’s invisible -- customers notice.
Customers 55+ generally viewed fees less favorably than younger customers.
When it comes to choosing a fee to eliminate, customers choose fees they have recently paid despite their perceptions of whether it’s fair or not.
Nearly half of respondents didn’t know if their bank had recently reduced or eliminated fees.
When customers were aware of favorable changes to fee policies, it changed their perception of their bank for the better.

"I feel like I am a customer of the bank, and my money is processed through them so in a way I am providing a service to them."

Surveyed Bank Consumer

Next Section:

How customers view banking