You couldn’t go ten minutes at BAI Retail Delivery without hearing about – or talking about – NSF fees. It’s natural that it would be a hot topic as it is certainly getting its share of media and congressional attention these days. Richard Davis made a great point that the industry needs to educate Congress and the public that these fees are not necessarily immoral – after all, as he so nicely pointed out, we are providing a service for the consumer and we are charging for that service.  I agree, and we need to take Mr. Davis’ advice that we need to tell the story in a more positive light.

I also think it’s important that we do more to educate our consumers. This economic crisis is very tightly linked to the lack of economic education and financial literacy in our country. We don’t do enough as a society to arm our population with the necessary tools to think about the world the same way we do as bankers, financial advisers, and economists. Not everyone needs to have a passion for these topics, but they certainly need to have a basic understanding in order to manage their personal finances. The national and state councils on economic education do everything they can to support these initiatives for our youth, but we also have an adult population that lacks this knowledge.

Let’s take it upon ourselves to help solve that problem. Banks could generate goodwill by offering simple educational programs at the point of sale. Let’s take 15 minutes to teach a new customer how to use their checking account. This may just allow them to avoid the extra fees down the road, while at the same time allowing you to guide them to being a profitable customer in other ways.

Not only is it good for the customer, but it would have to go a long way to convincing Washington that we are serious about addressing the issue ourselves – without Congress imposing their own solution.

Worst case – you are the only bank in your market that makes this effort. In that case, it should allow you to differentiate your offering and build that goodwill or brand value with the market. It’s a win-win.