Excerpt (Cincinnati Business Courier, April 10):
"Monthly interchange fees in New Horizon's ATM network rose so sharply in the last year that he was forced to switch networks. As a result, the New Horizons ATM will impose a $1 surcharge, starting in late May. And so it goes in the nation's banking industry, where an addiction to fees is showing no signs of abating. A 2004 study by the Chicago Federal Reserve showed noninterest income now accounts for nearly half of all commercial bank operating income in the United States. That's up from 29 percent in 1986. "Fee income is the great stabilizer of bank earnings, particularly in unfavorable interest rate environments such as the one we're currently experiencing," said Greg McBride, senior financial analyst for Bankrate.com, a consumer-oriented financial research firm."
[source: Cincinnati Business Courier]
