The Commonwealth Bank has announced it will reduce dishonour fees from $35 on business and personal transaction accounts to $5, and overdraft fees from $30 to $10. It will also reduce the late payment fee on Home and Personal Loan accounts from $45 to $25.

It will not reduce exception fees on credit cards, instead it will introduce functionality next month that allows customers to put their own stop on transactions that will exceed their credit limit at the point of sale.

The fee changes will take effect on 1 October, 2009.

CommBank is the 3rd major bank to announce fee reductions. It is not clear whether they are in response to the unfair contract terms in the Australian Consumer Law, political pressure, consumer dissatisfaction, an improvement in profits or a combination of all.

In any case, there will be continuing pressure for the method of calculation of  default fees to be transparent.