I agree with Rachel that Bank Negara Malaysia should step in to review the charges imposed by local commercial banks. The banks keep emphasisng the high cost of computerisation but they have not told us the manpower costs savings, the increased productivity and competitive edge benefits which offset the high cost of computerisation.

Given that banks have been offering Voluntary Separation Schemes and have increased their profitability, perhaps customers can assume that banks are not passing on their lower cost benefits to their customers.

Instead all kinds of service, administration, late and penalty charges are imposed on the hapless customer.

Some of the charges imposed by Banks that I had heard are as follows :

a. Customer's current account overdrawn - bank officer calls you to top up by 10am. Customer tops us the account as instructed. Bank charges RM60 for calling you.

b. Bank's administrative charges for overdue fixed-loan instalment as seen in one bank's letter: 'WEF July 2002, Term-loan loan late admin fee is revised to RM50 & RM100 at 15 & 45 days past due date respectively.' There is the additional penalty interest charge on the overdue instalment.

Some banks will not give you any benefit if you pay early on the loan instalment, If you decide to pay three instalments in advance, they put the money in a non-interest bearing account for you and only utilise the money when the instalment falls due. The customer does not get the reduced principal amount for interest calculation.

There are all kinds of charges (justified or otherwise) which are too many to elaborate here. If the high cost of computerisation is the reason, then the banks must compute their manpower cost savings, their increased productivity and competitiveness edge benefit into an equation.

As it is, we do not see the bigger picture except the ever fattening bottom line of banks.