Many people thought that since the interest rate in Germany and Europe is high, the fees for bank accounts might be low. As it turns out, they are very wrong. ING will now tighten the requirements for a free bank account for customers and if you want to have a Girocard, you will have to pay more than before.
The increases in fees and requirements for customers
A lot of people enjoyed the comfortableness of an online bank. Especially young people like to just have online support and not always having to run to a bank and deal with all the issues there. But now, accounts at ING won’t be as easy to get as they used to be. If you want to have a ‘Girokonto’ that is free, from 1. December you will have to have an income of at least 1.000€. Meeting the requirements is a huge advantage because otherwise there will be a fee of 4,90€ that is mandatory to pay each month. On top of that, the Girocard will cost 1,49€ instead of 0,99€.
There will also be an increase in fees if you want to deposit cash money into your bank account and if you pay with foreign currencies.
By the end of 2023 ING had 3,4 million Current accounts and 2,5 million deposits. Overall ING managed to increase the number of customers to 9,54 which is almost as high as their 10 million goal.
The competitors of ING
Many online banks have current accounts without any fees if the customer has money going into the account regularly. For banks like DKB, Comdirect or Consorsbank the minimum amount per month is still 700€
Ralph Müller, CEO of ING, just said in march that the company will have to invest in better digital resources and adapt to processes used by foreign banks. He said that the customers of these foreign banks are much more satisfied with the way they work than with online banks in Germany. This is also to underline the dominance in the area of online banking of ING.
The permission of ING customers
In 2021 the so called Bundesgerichtshof (BGH) decided that banks need the permission of their customers if they want to change prices. Before the verdict banks were able to just chance prices when and by how much they wanted without bigger notice of customers. The only way to disagree for customers was to specifically mention that within the first two months of the changes.
ING wants to start with collecting permissions from next week on. This will work pretty simple. As soon as customers go on the app they will be lead to a form that they will have to accept and then they can go on as usual.
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