[lxgr]

> An alternative might be scaled NSF fees.

Why should these fees be scaled? There's no variable cost to the bank returning an item (i.e. a check, ACH debit etc.) as unpaid, unless I'm missing something.

Overdraft fees, on the other hand, have always seemed very strange to me, since I grew up with European-style banking: Overdrawing an account is standard procedure in most European countries and is just considered a form of credit, with standard interest rates and everything.

Calling it anything other than credit seems to me to be mostly an artifact of the structure of US banking (i.e. the fairly strong separation of the lending and deposit-taking sides of US banks).