LYNN – In a pro-consumer move consistent with its Join us for Good mission, Eastern Bank announced changes to its overdraft program: reducing daily overdraft fees from a maximum of five per day to one, introducing a waiver of overdraft fees for checking account overdraws of less than $50, and implementing a full elimination of non-sufficient fund fees and returned item fees.
Eastern Bank’s Executive Vice President of Enterprise Risk Management, Steven Antonakes, of Lynn, said that the bank’s overdraft reduction initiative, which mirrors Bank of America’s policy change in January, focuses on relief for customers.
“One of the changes we’ve made is we will no longer provide an overdraft fee if a customer overdraws their account by $50 or less in a given day,” Antonakes said. “We’ve eliminated a number of fees outright and also reduced the number of overdraft fees charged daily from five to one. We anticipate these changes will provide significant relief, especially for customers facing any type of financial challenges.”
Antonakes said that although a few large banks throughout the country have changed their overdraft fee policies this year, the trend has not gained a lot of traction for smaller institutions like Eastern Bank.
“We did an analysis to determine where we thought it would benefit our customers, and then announced these changes last week. Some of the largest banks in the country have made similar changes to their overdraft space, from fairly meaningful, to perhaps not enough, but we haven’t seen a great deal of change yet for smaller, or mid-sized institutions,” Antonakes said.
Antonakes said that these recent changes better reflect Eastern Bank’s mission statement, promising a high-quality banking service and support for financial wellbeing to its customers.
“We launched an initiative to review our overdraft program with the goal of better aligning our practices with the bank’s mission, and the updates that we’ve made I think really reflect Eastern’s continued commitment to convenient banking services that support financial wellbeing. The changes really provide greater options for consumers to manage their accounts, prevent overdrafts, and reduce the cost of overdraft,” Antonakes said.
Eastern also offers several tools and educational resources in its Eastern Financial Academy — an online learning site that aims to provide consumers with information on how to make better financial decisions.
Anthony Cammalleri can be reached at [email protected].
