Bank profit announcements render customer fees ‘unjustified’

Consumers who suffer money worries as a result of high bank fees can rightly feel aggrieved at the high profits announced by such establishments, it has been claimed.

Louise Holmes, a spokesperson at Moneyfacts.co.uk, claimed dire financial situations make such revenue particularly hard to swallow.

The industry figure observed: “Charging customers high fees and charges can never be seen as a good thing and certainly cannot be justified alongside high profit announcements.”

Her comments came in the wake of new figures published by HSBC.

The company revealed its pre-tax profit more than doubled to $11.1 billion (£6.98 billion) in an August press release.

This amount equated to $10 billion excluding fair value on own debt.

Moreover, underlying pre-tax profit rose by $2.2 billion – or 30 per cent – to reach a total of $9.6 billion.

The building society announced loan impairment charges and other credit risk provisions were down to $7.5 billion.

This represented a drop of $6.4 billion and took the fees to their lowest level since the start of the economic downturn.

Earnings per share also escalated by 81 per cent to $0.38, it was revealed.

Ms Holmes observed some people may believe the gains are down to excessive consumer charges.

She added: “Many consumers feel that banking staff should not be rewarded large bonuses for merely doing their job.”

A recent study carried out by Nationwide Building Society showed individuals are becoming increasingly pessimistic about their ability to save money, as 21 per cent of consumers claimed they will not be able to put aside as much money as they do now in six months time.

By Amy White