Money Watch – Personal Finance Blog

It looks as if the long-awaited result to the bank charge court case will be annouced this Thursday, 24th April.

If you recall, last year the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) started a court case against 7 different banks and building societies, to decide whether it can claim that their charges are unlawful under unfair contractual terms rules. This case is the first step in the OFT process – once we have the court’s decision, the OFT will then make its ruling, which if the court case goes in their favour, is likely to say the banks have acted unlawfully.

It’ll be interesting to see the courts decision and how the banks react. In the long term, it has been thought that it might mean the end of free banking, if such a thing exists. In the short term, it might provide consumers with a little bit of laugh at the expense of the banks during the onslaught of the credit crunch.