Oh, hello hidden bank fees

Here at Plum we are committed to our mission to make our users better off. We got sick of hidden bank fees so we thought we would build a tool to find them all easily. nbd.

Want to find out what your bank has been charging you? Introducing Fee Fighter ✌️ To see all your bank fees hit the link.

Turns out the average personal current account holder was charged £152 in bank fees last year, which – if this figure was replicated across the UK’s 65 million active current accounts – suggest that UK banks made at least £9.9 billion in charges of current account users in 2017. If you have an overdraft the average is closer to £217.

How did we do it?

The script processes the description of each bank transaction and if that matches a pattern corresponding to one of the four categories, it flags that as a fee. When the fee is not listed as a separate line in the bank statement, the amount is extracted from the description itself, otherwise the fee amount coincides with the amount stated for the transaction.

So what are these charges for?

• 56% can be attributed to overdrafts, both from planned and unplanned usage.
• 11% are foreign exchange fees.
• 6% are late transaction fees.
• 27% of the total charges were classed as “other” – these could include monthly account fees, unspecified bank fees, or bank subscriptions.

We split it all out so you can see what's what.

“For too long, banks have been guarding customer data, and have been purposely vague about the true cost of overdrafts, borrowing, and FX. But with Open Banking now a reality, this information can be made readily available to the benefit of consumers. That’s why we’ve created Fee Fighter – it’ll allow people to easily check the “hidden fees” that the banks aren’t telling them about, and help them decide if they can get a better deal elsewhere. This is just one of the ways that we’re helping people be better off.” - Victor Trokoudes, CEO and co-founder of Plum