Breaking the Bank: Banks are suffering from slumping profits, and you're paying for their slow recovery. Not anymore

摘要

Among the most hard-hit victims of today's troubled economy are the nation's banks. New service charges, confusing account options and wildly varying interest rates are just some of the techniques banks are using to help pump up their slumping profits- at your expense. One former bank executive estimates you could overpay your bank tens of thousands of dollars in service charges, credit card fees, business loans and checking and savings fees during the lifetime of your business ... unless you learnhow to beat the banks at their own game. Here's how: Never put a dime in a savings account. When the Federal Reserve lowered short-term interest rates to at or near zero, all interest-bearing bank accounts took a hit. Commercial banks have always paid miserable rates on passbook savings accounts, and they're worse than ever now. In fact, they're guaranteed to lose money with inflation factored in. If you keep any of your operating cash in a bank savings account, close it out and transfer it into a money market account where it will begin drawing substantially more (but still not great) interest.