How to beat credit card and home loan fees

There are many ways in which consumers can avoid paying bank fees, one publication has noted.

Credit cards, home loans, transaction accounts and other products are all affected by bank fees each year, but there are plenty of ways in which this can be beaten.

A piece for News Limited Newspapers has revealed that customers have began fighting back from incurring these charges, including the introduction of a class action which aims to get back some of the $1 billion of exception fees that consumers were charged last year.

The publication noted that choosing a credit card with the lowest fee is not always the best course of action to take.

Datamonitor senior analyst Harry Senlitonga agrees, stating that it may be better to find a product with the lowest interest rate for those who are carrying their debt over from one month to the next.

This news comes after Lesley Parker, writing for the Sydney Morning Herald, recently noted that promotional credit cards often "come with a catch".

But those looking for lower home loan fees may like to take heed of recommendations from Damon Nagel, a director at property investment group Ironfish, who noted that these charges, as well as interest, could be decreased by using a package that the majority of financial corporations offer.

He added: "Each bank is slightly different. You might pay $375 a year and get a credit card with no service fees, no cheque fees, no loan fees and on top of that you can get 0.75 percentage points off loans."

However, Australian Bankers' Association chief executive Steven Munchenberg pointed out that banks have reduced some fees in the last year, which has led an 11 per cent decrease - according to the Reserve Bank of Australia - in the amount of charges financial institutions have taken from households on transaction accounts.

"There is a lot of choice in the marketplace accounts with no monthly fees, free accounts for children, students and pensioners or low-cost accounts for those who make a lot of transactions," he stated.

By Emma North