Concerns about commercial banks charging excessive fees to customers have been brought to the government’s attention today in parliament.
Member for Nawae, Gisuat Siniwin asked if the Department of Treasury could intervene to help small businesses and individuals who pay different fees for all transactions conducted through the commercial banks.
This includes a K7 deposit fee, cheque clearance fees, account maintaining fees, ATM withdrawal fees, etc.
He said this is hurting ordinary citizens and called on the department to look into this.
Treasury Minister Patrick Pruatich said commercial banks were private profit oriented entities with the aim to make profit at the end of the day.
And said for each transaction done with the bank, they try to recover the costs through these fees.
However, he gave his undertaking to talk to the Central Bank to look into this and provide a response at a later date.
Meantime, questions were also raised on the reintroduction of the one toea and two toea denominators.
To this, Pruaitch said this is impossible as the Central Bank made the decision to cease the use of these small denominators because the cost of producing them was high but its use in the country was very low.