China Banking Association's Regulatory Commission announced on April 6 that its member banks would halt the cross-bank ATM inquiry fee before April 20 in response to negative customer feedback.

This fee, having become a beacon for all controversial fees in monopolized industries, triggered an avalanche of criticism from domestic bank customers. 

On June 1, 2006, many of China's banks introduced a 0.3 yuan fee for card holders checking their bank balance at an ATM.

A recent online survey of 8,351 netizens, jointly commissioned by China Youth Daily and www.qq.com, showed a massive 94.5 percent in favor of scrapping the measure.

Such a backlash coupled with the desired end-result has sent a clear message to monopolized industries that they cannot simply levy any fee they wish to. Economist Liang Xiaomin sided with the majority opinion, explaining that although banks must seek profits, they should do so by improving their services, instead of sucker-punching their customers.

The survey clocked 96.8 percent of respondents as being angry about a range of unreasonable fees in a range of industries, including trans-provincial cell-phone fees (86.3 percent), setting up charges for phones, broadband or cable TV (85.1 percent), credit card fees (79.6 percent) and public transport card deposits (54.2 percent).

A common complaint is that the controlling enterprises simply levy these charges, without taking into account public consideration or carrying out accurate impact research. Citing the ATM fee, the regulations were passed by banks alone, with no external input.

Professor Wang Yuesheng from Peking University's School of Economics explained that the principal problem was the policy-making methodology more than the price itself.

Taking into account that formerly only state-owned enterprises could be in such a monopoly position, the system has not changed since private and foreign companies entered the fray. Thus, the central government, Wang urged, must take a greater role than before. The twin problems the government will face will be how to better supervise the operation of monopolized enterprises and of how to best pander to various interests.

According to the survey, Wang's words find a foothold in public opinion with 89.5 percent of respondents wanting to see more supervision of monopolized industries and 81.5 percent dissatisfied with government involvement.

(China.org.cn by Wang Ke, April 17, 2007)