How Many Financial Services Do You Really Need?

If for just a brief moment you were given the super-hero power of x-ray vision, with the only catch being that the x-ray vision only works to give you an inner view of the financial services sector, you’d be shocked and angry at what is really going on behind the veil of secrecy. I mean you have scenarios where one person’s bank account – on which they depend a whole lot for the running of their day-to-day livelihood – gets closed down completely and costs money to reinstate just because they had a negative or zero balance, while another client of the same bank gets exclusive access to high interest-paying services just because they have more money in their account.

We all know that it’s all about making money and all about profits for the financial institutions such as banks, but in reference to the example above, would it perhaps not be to the good of all involved if they exercised just a little bit more discretion in the way these financial institutions deal with the livelihoods of people? This brings about another question however, that being just exactly how many financial services do you really need? Considering how financial institutions roll out the red carpet in order to get you on board some product or service they want you to pay for, you’d naturally ask yourself if you do indeed need all of these services they’re throwing your way.

Take packaged bank accounts for instance. This is such a serious issue that you have financial specialists such as Stanton Fischer who deal specifically with claims related to miss-sold packaged bank accounts. Taking into account the way this “all-inclusive” financial service is often presented and sold to clients, whether as a first-time offer or as an upgrade to your existing banking services, you’d have thought that this is the answer to all your banking requirements.

Often this is on the complete contrary. But whether or not your claim on some money possibly owed to you as a compensation for having been miss-sold a package bank account was successful, your new knowledge of just how many different ways through which you’re being charged for services you don’t really need should get you thinking a bit more deeply about just how many financial services you need.

I suppose it makes sense to diversify service providers so that you can hedge against something really going wrong with just one provider and having it affect all your financial affairs, but even if you don’t have that x-ray vision super-power, simply taking a closer look at your financial affairs could have you revealing a lot unnecessary money-leaks.

Make no mistake about it; financial service providers, particularly the banks, will make use of absolutely any opportunity to try and get you to pay fees. Such fees can also come in the form of paying back interest on loans which you don’t really need.

When it comes to handling your personal financial affairs, leaner is definitely better.