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Cancelling costs them no money — banks these days don't make money on customer accounts.

• pfortuny 9mo ago
  As long as they keep other people’s money, they make money on it.
  • bayesnet 9mo ago
    This is arguable for HSBC (in the UK at least). Ringfencing laws post 2008 have made customer deposits in the UK very difficult to invest profitably, to the point where (at least last time I cared about this) they were charging commercial customers to have UK domiciled accounts.
    • yjftsjthsd-h 9mo ago
      > Ringfencing laws post 2008 have made customer deposits in the UK very difficult to invest profitably, to the point where (at least last time I cared about this) they were charging commercial customers to have UK domiciled accounts. I don't follow; why would regulations on consumer accounts change the price of commercial customer accounts?
      • bayesnet 9mo ago
        Small businesses accounts were/are also subject to ring fencing, and my recollection is that large banks sought to recover the costs of ringfencing rules via charges on large clients. Come to think of it this was all also at the time of very low rates which was more likely to be the issue.
• loloquwowndueo 9mo ago
  Maybe. But I still have to find a bank where you say you’re leaving and they say “oh ok, here’s your account balance, there’s the door”. The main thing is that they do care about retention.
• tadfisher 9mo ago
  On the face of it, this is not true; net interest margin is still the main profit driver, followed by fees. But besides that, retail deposit customers are a conversion funnel for more lucrative financial products such as credit cards and personal loans. And besides that, banks need capital reserves in the form of customer deposits; if too much money flows out then they will have to either acquire customers or pause their real moneymaking activity (loans). Your account doesn't make them significant money. Retail banking in general makes boatloads of money, and deposits are central to this now that we're out of zero-interest-rate-land.
  • nerdsniper 9mo ago
    > And besides that, banks need capital reserves in the form of customer deposits USA's fractional reserve requirement is now 0%. UK has also gotten rid of their reserve requirement as well. In the UK, the limit to what the bank can loan out is more determined by the market cap of the bank (committed shareholder value). Cash is only strictly needed to cover ... customer deposits. So in the UK, if a bank gets rid of customer deposits entirely, then it kind of doesn't need any cash anymore. It can just lend money out of thin air based on its total net worth (market cap).
    • deleted 9mo ago
      [deleted]
    • tadfisher 9mo ago
      Thank you. I should probably know this, but I'm on the engineering side of things and not the business/operations/finance/whatever side.
  • bigbadfeline 9mo ago
    > Retail banking in general makes boatloads of money, and deposits are central to this now that we're out of zero-interest-rate-land. Talking about banking in general is generally a huge mistake. While deposits may be central, retail deposits are irrelevant for the banks that do > 70% of banking. > now that we're out of zero-interest-rate-land. Doesn't matter to them.
• malfist 9mo ago
  If banks didn't make money on customer accounts they wouldn't offer customer accounts.
  • direwolf20 9mo ago
    They're not making a loss, but it's not a lucrative business.
  • octoberfranklin 9mo ago
    They get political clout from it. They're keeping the people corralled into a payment system that politicians can easily influence. Jamie Dimon is the most popular banker in Washington because Chase has (by far) more retail depositors and retail deposits than any other bank. That's power.