Australian banks are slowly beginning to transfer the burden of fees from consumers to businesses, which now have to bear as much as 13 per cent of the increase in the fee income of Australian lenders.
The scrapping of exception fees, and lower income generated by deposits has resulted in a 16 per cent fall in the amount of fees paid by households according to the central bank, which released the results of an analysis of data from 17 different banks on Thursday.
According to the central bank, consumers paid out a total of $4.2 billion in fees during the 2009-2010 financial year, the lowest they have paid since 2006 as the effect of the scrapping of exception fees began to have an impact, which resulted in lower fees generated from late payment, over drawn and over limit charges.
The average weekly fee paid by consumers dropped by 18 per cent according to the Australian Bankers Association, whilst the RBA says the fee income generated by credit cards also fell by 11 per cent.