This is huge. It seems criminal for banks to charge you up to $50 when you may not even have that in your account.
34% of Canadians getting slapped with one of these fees in 2023 is bonkers. That's like $50 million in fees taken from the people who are least able to afford it.
"A cap of $10 was chosen to balance the need to protect consumers from high fees with the need to maintain the integrity of the payments system by incentivizing consumers to honour their payments," the department wrote.
Don't worry, they usually do, they just give you privilege of paying anyways.
Having worked in banking I can tell you it's a fee that is charged purely to punish people with limited cashflow. EQ bank is the only one I know of that doesn't have them.
Good! I remember threatening to cancel my bank accounts last time they tried to charge me the NSF fee (which worked). I was fresh out of Europe and thought that was the most ludicrous thing. Payment couldn't go through, i.e. you literally did nothing and it cost $50 or whatever? That was over a decade ago and still mad about it. A shame it's still $10 but it's at least a manageable amount for most people.
But if you were to have written the headline, and could only eat either a hamburger or a hot dog today, how many shoes would you own if next Tuesday was a full moon?