> You didn't ask for credit. They make money by giving people credit. You wouldn't have made them any money. In South Africa, banks are desperate for young cus

> You didn't ask for credit. They make money by giving people credit. You wouldn't have made them any money. In South Africa, banks are desperate for young customers and all of them have no-fee high-interest savings accounts for children, no-fee checking accounts for students, and so on. On university open days and orientation days, all the major banks have a large presence encouraging students to sign up for these. Most customers never switch banks after opening their first account, so it's highly worthwhile for the bank to be attractive to customers who've never interacted with a bank before (especially if they have money to save as children, so are likely middle or upper class, or are attending university, so have future earning potential). I'm surprised this is not the case in the US (Wells Fargo quite happily gave me a no-fee checking account just after the financial crisis began, when I did an internship in the US -- I assumed the reasons were much the same).