£5 for Being Broke: The Bank Accounts Exploiting the Desperate

Okay, welcome back to another episode of Banking Without Borders.

So how does a fee of £1.49 sound to receive your own wages? Or a 2% fee to take your own money out of a cash machine and know that's not abroad? Or my personal favourite, 50 pence to check your own balance? These are real fees on real UK accounts and today we're going to rank the four worst offenders.

but there's something quite unsettling that they all share in common.

These accounts are marketed at people who think a normal bank won't take them.

So they come with no credit checks, no proof of address requirements, and you can sign up in minutes.

They are basically pitching accessibility for people who can't get an account, but there's a price for that inclusion.

You get charged to be paid.

You get charged to pay a bill.

One of them even takes a percentage of your money every time it leaves the account.

So basically, the less you have, the bigger slice they take.

And here's the part that genuinely got us to make this episode.

Most people using these accounts think that this is their only option.

This is all they have.

But it isn't.

Everything these providers are charging for, you are entitled to for free by law.

The nine biggest banking groups in the country have to offer it.

And bad credit cannot be used to turn you away.

So stay to the end because we're going to show you exactly how to use this.

But before we get there, Jan, four accounts ranked least bad to genuinely staggering.

Where do we even begin?