From the 2022 Fifth Third Sustainability Report: Reducing Punitive Fees for Customers
“Our goal is to help give customers access to their own money and save for the future,” said Howard Hammond, head of Consumer Banking at Fifth Third in the Company’s 2022 Sustainability Report. “When a customer does not have the funds to cover a transaction or purchase, we don’t want to penalize them. We want to innovate to provide customers the ability to gain access to their money faster and avoid fees to cover a cash-flow shortfall.”
Fifth Third eliminated nonsufficient funds fees for all consumer accounts as of June 2022. Six months earlier, the Bank enacted several policy changes to reduce punitive fees, including protecting customers from overdraft fees on small dollar transactions. Fifth Third provides overdraft protection, an optional service that links to certain Fifth Third products and automatically transfers funds from one account to another to protect customers from incurring overdraft fees if one account has insufficient funds. While it is important to provide overdraft protection as a courtesy to customers, Fifth Third also works to provide additional solutions to prevent reliance on a more expensive overdraft solution.
“Our customers cannot predict or plan for every life event, so it is important that we make access to their money straightforward while limiting—or eliminating—fees,” said Hammond. “Options like Extra Time are ideal for customers to get their finances in order and avoid charges.”
This article originally appeared in the Fifth Third Bancorp 2022 Sustainability Report in its Innovative and Inclusive Products section. The report was published on June 30, 2023 on Fifth Third’s website at www.53.com/sr.
