As we have said in a previous article of our blog, the opening and maintenance costs of an online bank account have experienced a considerable increase during 2018, while the returns are close to zero.
In fact, we report that the annual costs of a traditional account used through an online channel have risen together with the ones of a normal account, where the increases has already occured in 2016.
For what concerns the “pure” online bank account, the increases are more significant: the APR (Annual percentage rate for families) calculated by L’Economia of Corriere della Sera, indicates that the average of the online bank accounts has risen by 27% in just 6 months, from August 2017. But the most substantial variation has occurred for traditional banks, which affirm that the increases of the web are just a physiological adjustment: this is the cost of technology. A factor that has influenced the web costs, has been the price increase of the credit card fee, which is becoming a more and more popular tool for reducing the circulating cash.
Dealing with internet banks, the average fee for a credit card is more than 15€. Furthermore, in some cases, additional fees are required for withdrawal inferior than 100€ and mobile top-ups. While, for the moment, bank transfers via internet are free of charge. Loans are still advantageous, in fact, their rates are reducing both for traditional and online banks.
Bad news talking about interesting rates: online banks had not to pay for stocks until few time ago, but now everybody has to do it. For sure, the negative interest rates on the money deposited by the banks of the ECB (European Central Bank) haven’t acted in its favour.
However, there’s also a good news: italian banks are stronger. After having improved the capital and developed its endowment, they have been able to make capital ratios grow. Stefano Caselli, the Bocconi University pro-rector, affirms it and shares his optimism with Antonio Patuelli, the IBA (Italian Bankers Associations) says: “I’m feeling a positive new trend that we hasn’t perceived for ages, for what concerns mainly economic accounts, and not just for the biggest banks”.
If you’re interested in receiving further information for the opening of our online bank account, contact our experts, they will be happy to help you find the best solution for you.