China Banking Association's Regulatory Commission announced on
April 6 that its member banks would halt the cross-bank ATM inquiry
fee before April 20 in response to negative customer feedback.
This fee, having become a beacon for all controversial fees in
monopolized industries, triggered an avalanche of criticism from
domestic bank customers.?
On June 1, 2006, many of China's banks introduced a 0.3 yuan fee
for card holders checking their bank balance at an ATM.
A recent online survey of 8,351 netizens, jointly commissioned
by China Youth Daily and www.qq.com, showed a massive 94.5
percent in favor of scrapping the measure.
Such a backlash coupled with the desired end-result has sent a
clear message to monopolized industries that they cannot simply
levy any fee they wish to. Economist Liang Xiaomin sided with the
majority opinion, explaining that although banks must seek profits,
they should do so by improving their services, instead of
sucker-punching their customers.
The survey clocked 96.8 percent of respondents as being angry
about a range of unreasonable fees in a range of industries,
including trans-provincial cell-phone fees (86.3 percent), setting
up charges for phones, broadband or cable TV (85.1 percent), credit
card fees (79.6 percent) and public transport card deposits (54.2
percent).
A common complaint is that the controlling enterprises simply
levy these charges, without taking into account public
consideration or carrying out accurate impact research. Citing the
ATM fee, the regulations were passed by banks alone, with no
external input.
Professor Wang Yuesheng from Peking University's School of
Economics explained that the principal problem was the
policy-making methodology more than the price itself.
Taking into account that formerly only state-owned enterprises
could be in such a monopoly position, the system has not changed
since private and foreign companies entered the fray. Thus, the
central government, Wang urged, must take a greater role than
before. The twin problems the government will face will be how to
better supervise the operation of monopolized enterprises and of
how to best pander to various interests.
According to the survey, Wang's words find a foothold in public
opinion with 89.5 percent of respondents wanting to see more
supervision of monopolized industries and 81.5 percent dissatisfied
with government involvement.
(China.org.cn by Wang Ke, April 17, 2007)