This arguably falls under ‘access’; but its not uncommon for the perceived price advantages of banks to evaporate pretty quickly(and with far greater surprise and complexity) if you aren’t banking with enough money to meet any account minimums, pay everything on time, avoid ‘overdraft protection’ like it’s a particularly virulent strain of plague, and so on.
With ye olde sleazy check cashing and payday loans place, even the best-case terms are a usurious screwjob, while the customers a bank actually wants can typically enjoy the privilege of loaning the bank money without paying additional fees to do so; but it’s pretty chilling how quickly and efficiently a bank can work over a customer’s accounts if they trigger an overdraft spiral or other excursion from the terms and conditions(even better, a lot of it is ‘fees’ rather than ‘interest’ so while the effect is largely identical there is no zillion-percent interest rate for pesky journalists to write about).
As with many of the ‘being poor isn’t cheap’ problems, it’s true that banking services are a much, much, better value if you have at least a modest amount of money to put in one; but their ability to bleed a marginal customer dry according to the terms and conditions laid out in the reams of fine print is not to be underestimated.
