HSBC is planning to levy a new charge on some of its time-consuming and costly customers (see Family Money, Page 10).
The sums involved are quite piffling - $30 per transaction for those customers who conduct more than 25 transactions a month - so why is this an issue of interest? For a start, it is not an isolated incident - but forms part of a trend. Banks, not just HSBC, are getting serious about costs. No more Mr Nice Guy - customers must pay for their services.
This is not just happening in Hong Kong - across the world the cosy notion of the high-street bank is under review.
In Britain, retail banking is inordinately profitable - and for the simple reason that high-street banks levy high charges relative to the rest of the industry. Maybe that is where HSBC is learning its lessons, although spokesman Gareth Hewitt says the bank has been quite tardy in imposing the latest fee.
There are two views on this issue. One is that profitable customers - that could be you and me - are now subsidising non-profitable ones - that would be the old folks in the New Territories that line up in long queues for tiny transactions and small businesses that visit the bank to deposit piles of coinage at the end of each business day.
The other, equally reasonable, view is that this is precisely the purpose of high-street banks. Like bus services to outlying villages and telephone boxes in sparsely populated and unprofitable corners, service is the name of the game.
