On Jan 10, 10:44*pm, Bolwerk wrote:

I don't know if it's different in the UK, but free banking here is
generally just a way to soak the poor. *For most people, it comes with
no interest return and nearly usurious fees.

In the US, banks once made 90% of their income from interest charged
on loans and 10% from service fees. But now it's 50% each. Fees have
become a profit center in their own right.

In 1979 Congress passed* a banking deregulation act. This removed the
wall between savings and commercial banks and other regulations. IMHO
that led to the subsequent S&L scandals of the 1980s and more recent
bank failures. (What amazed me was that no one learned from the S&L
scandals and the problems merely reported themselves only 20 years
later.)


*People blame this on Reagan, but it was passed during Carter's Adm.