Also getting smacked with fees are the bank’s customers in Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York and Connecticut.
Spokeswoman Barbara Nate said customers in those states with the Essential Checking account will receive a notice this month that as of June, they must pay the fee. She said it can be waived if the customer has a minimum monthly balance of $1,500 or makes direct deposits of at least $500 during the statement period. The fee can be discounted to $5 if the customer signs up to receive monthly statements online.
The bank tried out the fees in other states last year. This is an expansion of the program.
Wells Fargo (NYSE: WFC) is metro Atlanta’s second-largest bank with 207 branches and $23 billion in local deposits.
Nate said the change is a result of regulatory changes, costs to deliver services, industry trends and the direction of the economy. Regulatory changes of note include reducing how much revenue banks can generate from overdraft and debit-card usage fees. Big banks have been scrambling to replace the lost revenue ever since the 2010 Dodd Frank Act took effect.
Service charges U.S. banks collect on savings and checking accounts totaled $8.67 billion in the fourth quarter of 2011, down 16 percent from two years earlier, before the regulatory changes,

source: bizjournals