Welcome to a New Era: Debit Card Fees

You may have heard the news, Bank of America is going to start charging $60 per year to use a debit card next year. Yep you read that right, to simply access your own money with the swipe of a card you will have to pay $5 per month. I know what your thinking, “well that’s just because it’s BoA”. The cold hard truth is that both Wells Fargo and Chase are also going to start charging a monthly fee of $3 next year as well.

So is the era of absolutely free checking going the way of the Dodo Bird? Well if you bank at one of the institutions that is announcing a new fee, I guess the answer is yes.

The good news is that Gallup Federal Credit Union does not carry any fees for our checking accounts – and we are not going to implement any in the future. In fact, many of our friendly credit union friends are going to keep their checking accounts free as well.

See guys, it’s really pretty simple, when we publish a mission statement we stick to it:

“Not for profit, not for charity, but for service”

Since our members are also our owners we don’t have to charge big fees to meet stockholders demands and keep up with analyst estimates. We do have to provide great service; because when you walk up to our teller line you’re not just a customer – You are the Owner.