We refer to your report Internet banking fee, Maybank customers cry foul .

There are increasing complaints today about the increasingly high bank charges being levied on customers for just about every banking service. Every so often, the Consumers Association of Penang receives complaints from consumers about unreasonable bank charges.

Banks these days are becoming creative in finding ways to impose banking charges. The recent flurry of banking mergers was embarked upon in the proclaimed pursuit of more efficiency. However, efficiency at higher costs is no efficiency at all.

For instance, Malaysia's biggest bank will this month begin to impose annual charges for use of its online facilities. This is ridiculous when online banking is supposed to bring down labour and processing costs.

What is worse is that the bank's customers subscribed to the online system when one of its attractions was its no-fee premise. Now that they are in the system, they will be obliged to cough up service charges. All in the name efficiency.

Another example of banking greed is that some banks have begun to charge fees for the direct credit of salaries from an employer's account into its employees' accounts.

One bank tells us that the rate is RM10 per employee per transaction. If the employer has 100 employees, RM12,000 will be charged each year just for the bank to push a few computer keys once a month.

The same bank is increasing its fees for clearing foreign cheques from RM10.15 per cheque to RM30.15 per cheque. This will translate into a 200 percent increase in its revenue for clearing foreign cheques. Have foreign cheque-clearing costs suddenly increased by 200 percent?

There is absolutely no justification for such exorbitant fees. The pre-tax profits of commercial banks in Malaysia increased from RM4.5 billion in 2001 to RM6.9 billion in 2003. Fee-based income contributed RM3.2 billion to the commercial banks' coffers in 2003.

And yet these banks have the temerity to increase fees or introduce new fees on an almost consistent basis.

Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) has to be farsighted and pro-active in this matter. Banks will continue to impose and increase charges ad infinitum until they are stopped. They are, after all, in the money-making business, and recent experience has shown them that BNM does little to stop them from implementing such profiteering schemes.

BNM is the regulatory body for financial institutions in Malaysia. It is empowered to enforce banking propriety by means of statute and by force of its licencing role. We assume that BNM does not license banks for the purpose of ripping off the public.

If BNM is not prepared to wield its authority to protect consumers, than the licencing of banks is rendered meaningless. BNM's licencing function might as well be rescinded and any Ali, Ah Chong and Ramasamy be allowed to operate a bank.

We trust, however, that BNM has the plight of Malaysian consumers at heart, and will thus do the right thing and step in. Without BNM's intervention, the banks will not volunteer to stop taking advantage of Malaysia's defenceless consumers.

The writer is the president of the Consumers Association of Penang (CAP).