WASHINGTON – Two senators on Thursday asked the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to require credit unions and banks to provide members/customers with a simple, one-page form listing all their checking account fees.
"When consumers are informed and can make choices, that’s when the free market is at its best and strongest," said Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., who was joined by Sen. Jack Reed D-R.I. in making the request.
Durbin and Reed touted a one-page disclosure form proposed by the Pew Charitable Trust. The form lists all basic checking account terms and conditions, including interest rate, ATM fees, overdraft penalties and account closing fees. Pew tested its form with consumers in Los Angeles, Philadelphia and Minneapolis.
The two senators want banks and credit unions to voluntarily adopt such a disclosure. But they also wrote to the acting the head of the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, requesting that the agency act quickly to require banks and credit unions to post such a disclosure form on their websites.
Among the first to agree to voluntarily use the short form are North Carolina State Employees’ CU and Pentagon FCU, two of the three largest credit unions in the country.
