As banks continue to ravenously hunt for sources of new revenue to feed the profit and bonus hungry monsters on Wall Streets, they have hit upon a gold mine. Wells Fargo recently updated changes to its online banking agreement to profit from the explosion in peer-to-peer money transfers via such non bank entities like Paypal and Google Wallet. The new changes read as follows:
For certain person-to-person money transfers made online or on your mobile device, the sender may be charged a fee for making the transfer. You will be advised of the amount of any fee before you make one of these transfers.
The posting time for receipt of certain person-to-person transfers may be changed. In particular, certain person-to-person transfers between Wells Fargo customers that now occur in real time may instead post to the recipient’s account the next business day. Revised posting times will be disclosed on the website when they go into effect.
Your funds transfer sending limits for recipients with limited transaction histories may be lower than your funds transfer sending limits for other recipients. Details on sending limits will be available as part of the service.
Currently, if you fund a transfer directly from your bank account via PayPal the money can be sent for free. These free transfers may now be on the chopping block with these new changes taking effect. The banks are seeking to profit from the burgeoning ecommerce industry which is shunning credit card transactions in favor of cheaper and easier methods of payment for both merchants and customers. With the addition of these fees the cost of doing business online will increase.
A PayPal account is like an online bank account. According to the PayPal website, the account acts like a “digital wallet,” for individuals wanting to buy and sell while on the go. The account is typically free to set up, and you can put money into it by transferring cash from a checking or savings account. Banks have long complained that these payment transfer systems are piggy backing on their services for free. PayPal expects more than $3.5 billion in mobile payment volume this holiday season.