Changes in the financial regulatory environment have empowered banks to levy a paupers fee.
At least, that's how Christopher Petrini sees it. He offers this poignant perspective on his new financial reality.

"Chase Bank will be charging my wife and I each $10 a month, basically for being poor," said Petrini, 32.  Beginning Feb. 8, Petrini and his wife each will be charged a $10 service fee because they cannot afford to keep a minimum $1,500 average daily balance in their checking accounts or meet the other requirements to avoid the surcharge.

Petrini, a marketing director who lives in Redondo Beach, and other Chase customers nationwide have been receiving letters informing them of the fee.  "Your letter was basically a slap in the face to my wife and I," he wrote in an e-mail to the bank. "Your letter, in essence, is telling us what failures we are in life."  The economy is tough enough, Petrini said, and now he and his wife, a waitress, have to pay Chase for the privilege of handling their money.

"We're like everyone else, just struggling to make it and living paycheck to paycheck," he said.
The Petrinis have a lot of company, as banks and other financial institutions scramble to generate additional revenue to replace what they think will be lost due to changes in the regulatory environment.

"We all know that this has been a time tremendous fluctuation in the industry primarily because of regulatory changes," said Carol Kaplan, a spokeswoman for the American Bankers Association.
Regulators have clamped down on two significant revenue streams - overdraft charges and interchange charges, which is what they charge retailers and others for processing credit and debit card purchases.
For example, last summer a regulation was implemented that requires banks to ask customers if they wanted to pay an overdraft charge in order to cover a transaction made on an account with insufficient funds. So-called overdraft protection had previously been extended by many banks as a matter of course.

Moebs Services, an economic research firm, said banks collected $35.4.1 billion in overdraft fees in 2008 and $37.1 billion in 2009.  Because banks are unsure how the new regulations will impact their revenue, they're imposing new fees to cover their costs.  For example, the association said it costs $150 to $200 to open an account and $250 to $300 annually to maintain it. And a bank needs a average daily balance of at least $1,200 to break even on a checking account.

Chase spokesman Gary Kishner says there are a number of ways to qualify for free checking, such as making a direct deposit of at least $500 once a month. An estimated 93 percent of retirees drawing a Social Security check meet that qualification, he said.  "We have to continue to look at all of our products and sometimes changes have to be made," Kishner said.

Petrini knows all about that. He's looking for a new bank.

"I'm doing my best to get out of there," he said of Chase. "I'm trying to find a smaller bank, not a big conglomerate."