FBC Listens To Customers & Removes Annual Fees For Prepaid Cards

A fortnight ago, FBC took the curious decision of adding annual fees to their prepaid cards, with individuals and businesses expected to pay $15 and $20 respectively.

It was a curious decision for a number of reasons; firstly FBC risked angering customers who would then go to other banks who offer similar cards without any annual payment. Lastly, whilst I don’t know for a fact how many FBC clients are using the prepaid card but I doubt the number would bring great returns, especially after a number of people would ditch the card because of the fees.

Anyway, FBC decided to hit a u-turn before their decision came back to bite them and sent messages to prepaid cardholders informing them that their cries were heard and the annual fees were being scrapped about three weeks after being put into effect:

Dear valued customer, your feedback is important to us, you spoke, we listened. We are no longer going to charge annual fees on MasterCard cards.
FBC message to prepaid card holders

I think this is a great move and for all the talk of banks putting customers at the centre of their solutions, this is one of the rare occasions where we see the banks walking the talk.