Ten suggestions for reducing fees
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Check the nature of the activities in your current account. You can obtain a record from the bank of your assets and liabilities, twice a year, free of charge, to enable you to check the profitability of transferring your account to another bank.
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Compare the conditions offered you by the bank that handles your account and by other banks.
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Demand to receive the benefits and discounts you are entitled to by virtue of belonging to a sector or population group that receives benefits from the bank.
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Negotiate over the conditions of administering your account, and request discounts and benefits for fees and interest payments.
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Examine the profitability of transferring your activity (partly or fully) to another bank. Remember, the cost of closing an account and moving to another bank is limited to a ceiling of NIS 40 for an account and an additional NIS 40 for your credit card, (and any third-party payments there might be).
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3.
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Perform your current-account activities using the direct channels. Authorized debits, standing orders, drawing checks, and drawing information from the ATM are all regarded as direct-channel actions. Use the ATMs, the Internet and the computerized answering service for other operations.
Remember. Operations such as making deposits or drawing from them, obtaining and repaying loans, purchasing and selling securities - do not entail a teller fee, even if they are carried out in the branch.
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If you have the means for executing actions directly (information/withdrawal card, cash/credit card) and you don't use them, return them and you can obtain a reduction in the teller fee.
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Compare the cost of the credit card you hold with the cost of other credit cards issued directly by credit-card companies. Remember, there is no obligation to hold the credit card issued to you by the bank that handles your account.
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Examine the possibility of concentrating credit-card payments. You will only pay a fee once for your monthly credit-card debt. Therefore, concentrating the authorizations and paying by credit card could help you to save bank fees.
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Check the monthly bank fee on your credit card, all the more so if you have more than one credit card. Remember, discounts on fee payments for credit cards are given to customers according to the volume of activity on the card.
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Examine whether it is worthwhile to hold more than one credit card. If you have inactive credit cards, return them to the issuer and save fees.
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Avoid splitting transactions unnecessarily. Some services include a minimum fee for each transaction (foreign currency, securities etc.).
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Examine whether it is worthwhile splitting credit-card transactions into installments. the transaction into installments for small purchases could be unprofitable.
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A few more tips…
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When you make comparisons, the following might be useful:
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Basic price lists - can be obtained at any bank branches and in it's website.
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Form for comparing the administering of current accounts - can be found on the Bank fees reform page, at the "Useful tools" section (in Hebrew).
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Information and comparisons - can be found on the Bank fees reform page, at the "Useful tools" section (in Hebrew).
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Make sure to always check:
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Whether you are entitled to benefits and discounts by virtue of belonging to population groups that the bank exempts from fees, or provides a discount.
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Whether the bank will be prepared to offer you better conditions from those that appear in the price list.
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Always check the rate of interest:
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On deposits - remember, you can also make a deposit in another bank (and not only in the bank that handles your current account). The cost of transferring money has been significantly reduced in the wake of the reform, and is equivalent to one operation in the direct channel. Compare which bank offers you the highest interest.
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On credit facilities - the fees for credit facilities have been cancelled. All that remains is to compare the rate of interest.
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On loans - the fees for loans up to NIS 50,000 have been canceled. All that remains is to compare the rate of interest.
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