Article: Squash some bank charges and others rise up in their place As the watchdog prowls, current account customers suffer

ILLUSTRATION BY GARY NEILL

The Office of Fair Trading (OFT) is digging deep.

A third of the way into a fact-finding exercise to gauge the justice - or otherwise - of pounds 30 penalties on current accounts, the regulator is still sifting through reams of information about bank charges.

It plans to report back before Christmas on the penalties for customers who don't seek authorisation before going into the red - whether it's a direct debit paid without sufficient funds, a bounced cheque or a breach of an agreed overdraft.

If it finds enough to suggest that bank fines are unfairly large, the OFT will instigate an in-depth study. This could lead - as it did with the recent investigation ...

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