The charging of fees by banks for something, anything, is nothing new.
But what's amazing is just how big a business it has become in the recent economic era.
In fact, forget mortgages, as the big banks already have.
Fee charging is a growing multi-billion dollar earner at too-big-to-fails. And it's catching on at the smaller guys.
In its fourth-quarter earnings, Redwood Trust said it was moving away from bid-in-competition, indicating plans to focus on investment banking activities that can be performed directly for clients.
This is especially true for banks with retail operations. According to this handy fee chart from Dawn Kopecki at Bloomberg, fees continue to be huge business.
Yes, so the fees from 2013 are down from 2012, but looking at the chart and reading the comments, it's clear from Kopecki that doing business with banks is going to get more expensive in 2014.
"Investment-banking fees generated from advisory services and debt and equity issuance rose 4.9% to an estimated $53.4 billion in 2013, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. That’s the highest amount since the peak of $86.9 billion in the pre–financial crisis, irrationally exuberant year of 2007."
The banking business is officially chasing every nickel and dime again.
