Costs associated with operating a Portuguese bank account are double those in Spain, according to a Deloitte report.
The average price per year for a bank account in Portugal is €78 while in Spain it is €38, according to the study which showed the fees paid in seven countries: Spain, Portugal, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy and the Netherlands.
Bank charges demanded from customers in Portugal is in the middle of the table and below the average of €91.
The best place to bank is in the UK where running a normal account costs an average of €20 per year. The most expensive is Germany, where the average annual cost is €181 but this also the country with the highest number of services available, at 115.
For the study, Deloitte analysed costs charged by Novo Banco, Millennium bcp, Santander and ActivoBank.
The factors that contribute to the high cost of banking in Portugal include sector pleas of low interest rates and the crisis that has affected Portuguese banks. This has made the banks switch to their own customers to make up for lower trading profits.
Several of Portugal’s banks have received state aid over the years, €15.525 billion in total, but this has not stopped them gouging customers to make up for their poor lending decisions and vanished loan collateral.
Brussels is OK with the general stiffing of account holders in Portugal, it was happy to rubber stamp the practice when approving rescue plans for ‘too big to fail’ Caixa Geral de Depósitos and Novo Banco.
