ECOBANK withdraws Foreign Currency Accounts Fees.

ECOBANK has withdrawn the fees it imposed on its Foreign Currency Accounts.

ECOBANK was one of the three banks, including Standard Chartered and Barclays that recently imposed about 2 percent per annum charge on foreign accounts holders.

The Bank has communicated to its customers that its 0.15 percent monthly fee will no longer be applicable.

JOY-BUSINESS has learnt the decision follows serious complaints from depositors. But will ECOBANK?s action influence the other banks to also review their charges.

A former treasure of a commercial bank, Chris Odamtten spoke to JOY-BUSINESS.

?Such developments have some ripple effect. You know when this thing happened there were some banks that decided not to charge at all. So its very likely people would drift towards those banks. But with Ecobank I expect that the customers who have been with them would still stay or even if they move they will come back. But in terms of attracting new customers to bring in foreign currency, that won?t be in the short term unless something is attractive is done.

Some financial institutions have told JOY-BUSINESS the move by the banks to impose the fees led to some depositors closing their dollar accounts. They also argue that this has affected the supply of dollars on the market.

Source : MyJoyOnline