[georgemcbay]

"(Some would say behind the times.)"

Joke's on you, we are ahead of the times!

It used to be pretty much just like you described here in the US and then they realized they could fee the shit out of us, "optimize" our deposits and withdrawal timings to maximize the likelihood of overdraft (which they would also then apply a series of meta-fees on), drop our earned interest to essentially 0% and most people would be too lazy to do anything about it.

[pjc50]

The UK has a bank regulator agency which isn't totally ineffective. Their main success was ending the sale of "payment protection insurance", which was overpriced and worthless in almost all cases.

There's still a level of BS fees, worse for business bank accounts, but the general consumer experience is fairly good at the moment.

[staunch]

A wise warden keeps his prison not so unpleasant as to cause a rebellion.

[peteretep]

Maybe this helps:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-23700012