Fees for mobile banking to become standard

Slowly but surely, banks are experimenting with ways to build charges into the apps' features—some for simple check deposits, others for instantaneous bill pay. As apps get higher-tech, too, a simple convenience could become costly.

Birmingham, Ala.-based Regions Financial rolled out its mobile banking app this spring with a tiered fee structure, based on when the customer needed access to funds deposited digitally. For immediate availability, which is a risk to the bank because it then doesn't have time to verify the fees, customers must pay $5, or a percentage of the deposit—whichever is higher. For access two days later, once the funds are verified, the fee is 50 cents—the same fee Minneapolis-based US Bank introduced for all mobile deposits in 2010. It was the first bank to initiate such fees.

"This is just the beginning of the creative ways banks will try to compensate in a low-rate, low-growth environment," said Todd Hagerman, senior research analyst at Sterne Agee. "They have to look for alternative ways to improve their fee income stream." Read more >>