The Cone of Silence Bank Presidents and the RCMP

Funny but Bank Presidents sound just like the RCMP Superintendent and Commissioners when it comes to telling the truth to Parliamentary Committees.

Deputy Commissioner George, who was suspended from duty after a previous appearance before the committee, was rebuked by MPs, who said her testimony has been evasive and incomplete.

Staff Sgt. Frizzell said the pension investigation took an unexpected turn when documents were uncovered suggesting insurance funds were being diverted with Deputy Commissioner George's approval.

But he was ordered off the case before he had a chance to follow the trail, he said.

She said she had nothing to do with the winding down of the pension-fund investigation, or the issuing of a "cease and desist order" to Staff Sgt. Frizzell directing him to return to other duties.

She did not rule out the possibility that she might have seen documents related to transferring insurance funds to the pension fund.

She did not recall this, but she said she relied on advice from another senior Mountie with expertise in insurance and financial matters that there was nothing untoward with the life-insurance funds.

Back off on ABM legislation, banks warn MPs

Whenever members of the Commons committee probing ATM fees tried to peer inside the world of banking, they were met for the most part with blank expressions or no comments."We won't comment on that," said the Royal Bank's Jim Westlake, group Head, Canadian Banking, when asked about profit margins on the ATM fees.

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Don't Bank On It.

That the banks will voluntarily concede on the issue of ATM fees.

If ATM fees were eliminated, customers would be subsidizing the customers of other banks who use their machines, argues the Canadian Bankers Association. If people want to forego the convenience fee, they should use their own bank's machine.

A red herring, a straw man, and a spurious argument since the oligopoly of the five banks already share their customers since the jointly own Interac, Cirrus, Plus etc. the ATM operating systems. And as such charge fees to stores using Interac, and to private ATM operators. They are literally cash registers for the Big 5 Banks, if not one arm bandits.

But banks don't seem to have convinced either the broader public or their political masters why a fee is necessary.

John Lawford is one lawyer eager to argue against the banks in upcoming finance committee hearings. "There is no need for fees at all," says Lawford, who represents about 4,000 Canadians through the Public Interest Advocacy Centre.

Banks collect an estimated $154 million annually in convenience fees, based on figures supplied by the Canadian Bankers Association – a tiny sliver of their overall profits. But it's an issue that gets Canadians' blood boiling.

A drop in the bucket, but don't forget this is only one set of user fees. There are service charges and exorbitant credit card charges which the Banking Committee needs to look at. Since the banks love to get us to pay for their screw ups.

But if the government were successful at getting the banks to eliminate fees, it might not solve consumers' pocket-book problem.

Banks might just shift the fees to another service, says U of T's Booth. Previously, banks raised service fees to recoup losses on 1970s loans to foreign countries such as Brazil, Argentina and Mexico, he says.

While the banks and others advocate you take out large amounts of money at one time from the ATM to avoid withdrawal charges, I point again, that this is simply shifting the burden on the consumer who is being gouged. You are charged by your branch, the ATM you use and further a monthly service charge. The ATM's were instituted to reduce branches and staff costs. The private ATM's were approved by the Competition bureau to provide competition to bank ATM's, though the Big 5 run Interac/Cirrus/Plus that ATM's use.

In February, the Toronto marketing research firm TNS Canadian Facts announced that 81 per cent of Canadian adults surveyed in the fall of 2006 had used a bank machine during the previous month, up from 78 per cent a year earlier, and that nine out of every 10 cash withdrawals had been made at a bank machine.

Furthermore, deposits of cheques and cash at ABMs doubled those made in branches, and in fact only 53 per cent of Canadian adults had visited a branch in the previous month, the lowest percentage since 1994.

So the solution is that the Big 5 banks eat the costs and make it back from stores that use ATM for your purchases, which they charge .50 for. And from the private ATM's, who can charge you whatever they want.

And if this is not solved by the Bank Act Review, it will be real money in your pocket issue that will dwarf any tax break promises the Conservatives make in the next election.

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Cry Me A River

Canada's Banking Cartel is crying about politicians bashing them, cry me a river.

At a time when the federal finance minister is asking Canada's big banks to justify a raft of ATM banking fees, Canada's second-largest bank is reporting its first quarterly profit of more than $1 billion.

Bank of Nova Scotia reported Tuesday morning a first quarter profit that smashed all expectations at $1.01 billion, or $1.01 a share, up almost 20 per cent from $844 million, or 84 cents a share, a year ago.

Last week Canada's largest bank, Royal Bank of Canada, posted first-quarter net earnings of $1.5 billion or $1.14 per diluted share, a 27.6-per-cent increase from the same quarter last year

Let us review the facts; ATM fees are set by a cartel of Canada's six banks. Not credit unions or foreign banks. The Banking Cartel owns Interac, it implemented ATM's as a way of closing branches and reducing front line staff.

Credit Cards, Visa and MasterCard, are owned by the same Banking Cartel. They set the interest charges and fees for the use of credit cards.

Bank fees themselves are then charged on top of this. For instance the banks charge you a service fee for having an account, and for any cheques used, or for any ATM withdrawls, and for use of their credit cards.

So when they claim that they need to charge you ATM fees for withdrawing money from their branch and not your own, well thats a little white lie. Since the cartel owns Interac, the fact is they have colluded in a monopolistic fashion to set fees.

That would be illegal in the United Sates. It is not illegal in Canada.

So you get charged for your ATM withdrawal three times, once when you use an ATM that is not your bank, next a charge by your bank for doing so and then they charge you a monthly service charge for having done so. Sounds like usury to me.

The Finance Committee will be reviewing Banking operations later this month, they need to look at all service charges as well as ATM fees. And they need to look at the impact of the Banking Cartels in operating Interac and the Credit Card business.

It has been a long standing libertarian tradition to oppose cartels and monopolies especially in the banking industry. A fact most conservatives forget, including the ones who claim to be libertarians.

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Compare and Contrast

Sometimes it's just impossible to seperate the right wing from the right wing, in this case, as with the recent debate in the blogosphere over minimum wages, some Liberal blogs at Progressive Bloggers sound just like Blogging Tories on the issue of the NDP calling for an end to bank service charges and ATM's.

Which shows, once again, that despite the catcalls from the right the Liberals are no more progressive or left wing than the Conservatives.

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Progressive Bloggers



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