Nothing is black/white. Banks which operate like your grade school basic economics classes are providing a healthy/necessary service for the economy. OTOH, it

Nothing is black/white. Banks which operate like your grade school basic economics classes are providing a healthy/necessary service for the economy. OTOH, it might be debated that banks which take your money leverage it out and get huge returns while giving you a fraction of a percent, banks that charge 2-4% transaction fees for basic transfers for merchants, or fee harvesting people for more than their net worth are more economic parasites than useful service providers. Much of modern banking in countries like the US are basically shifting wealth from the economic value creators to a few vampires growing their own personal fortunes which dwarf that of the other 99.999% of the population. The idea that they might return some of that to their customers though interest bearing checking accounts, removing low balance fees or any of their other abusive practices never comes up.