A petition, initiated by consumer champion Deco, has well over 20,000 signatures of those who are against Portugal’s banks imposing account charges for non-existent services.
It’s not only current account charges which customers are forced to pay, mortgage arrangement fees also come under the same category of paying for a service that has not taken place.
Deco says that both do not correspond to any service provided by the bank to its customers, so it wants parliament again to debate the issue.
The petition and a list of signatories were delivered to the Assembly of the Republic on Thursday with one intention - for MPs to vote to end bank commissions as no service has been carried out.
"We want MPs to define, once and for all, what can be considered as a banking service and what can not," the association argues.
According to the law, Deco says, banks are only allowed to charge fees for "services actually provided," but the law does not clarify what a 'service' actually is.
"So, each bank is interpreting this however it wants and then applies commissions wherever it wants," Deco points out.
Commissions charged by banks have been the subject of debate ever since Portugal's banks started charging for routine banking operations to make up for the money they have been losing on bad debts and poor loan decisions.
