Category: Wealth Tips

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How The Banks Get Rich And We Go Broke

When you tender a $50 note to pay a $50 fruit and veggie bill, you pay $50, the seller gets $50 cash. He then spends that on $50 worth of items. Simple, clean and fair.
If instead you pay it by card, the merchant pays a fee to the banks. The amount of the fee varies from merchant to merchant. I have used 1.5% in this example. So you pay your $50 bill by card. It still only costs you $50 but the merchant has received only $49.25 after the bank deduct their fee.

Do that for a month and a half and you can readily see how fast money evaporates out of your and my pockets and transfers magically to the banks.

Starting amount: $50.00

Credit Card Fee: 1.5%
Transaction No. Balance Available After Fee
1 $49.25
2 $48.51
3 $47.78
4 $47.07
5 $46.36
6 $45.67
7 $44.98
8 $44.31
9 $43.64
10 $42.99
11 $42.34
12 $41.71
13 $41.08
14 $40.46
15 $39.86
16 $39.26
17 $38.67
18 $38.09
19 $37.52
20 $36.96
21 $36.40
22 $35.86
23 $35.32
24 $34.79
25 $34.27
26 $33.75
27 $33.25
28 $32.75
29 $32.26
30 $31.77
31 $31.30
32 $30.83
33 $30.36
34 $29.91
35 $29.46
36 $29.02
37 $28.58
38 $28.15
39 $27.73
40 $27.32
41 $26.91
42 $26.50
43 $26.11
44 $25.71
45 $25.33
46 $24.95
At a transaction a day, as you can see from the above figures, in a month and a half the banks have over half what started as a $50 note.

Remember, on the surface this is invisible to the consumer as it is the merchant who pays the credit card fee. Of course the merchant has to build into the cost of his product the cost of the bank fee so you, the consumer, ends up paying for it.

So unless you are comfortable with the banks owning half of everything in less than two months, keep using cash or direct deposit for your purchases!

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NAB To “Debank” Customers

The National Australian Bank’s “revised” terms and conditions https://www.nab.com.au/content/dam/nabrwd/documents/guides/banking/personal-transaction-and-savings-products-terms-and-conditions-changes.pdf  went into force November 1st and include, in clause 11: “NAB may close your account at any time at its discretion”.

The reasons NAB would consider enforcing clause 11 make for interesting reading. NAB can take a range of things into account when exercising its rights and discretions. These can include:
(e) NAB’s public statements, including those relating to protecting vulnerable persons, the environment or sustainability;
(f) community expectations and any impact on NAB’s reputation;

So – as of November 1st – NAB reserves the right to de-bank you if you get cancelled, or say something they don’t approve of about climate change or “vulnerable people”.

From: https://off-guardian.org/2023/10/14/while-you-were-watching-israel/