Moynihan Defends Monthly $5 Debit Card Fee

It's a story that won't go away. Bank of America continues to take a lot of heat over its intention to charge a $5 monthly fee for most debit card transactions, one week after the plan became public. An online petition that urges BofA to cancel the fee now has 141,000 signatures. President Obama told ABC News that customers can stop such fees if they tell the banks, "You don't have some inherent right just to, you know, get a certain amount of profit if your customers are being mistreated." And in a speech on the Senate floor, Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill, called the fee an "outrage:" "Bank of America customers, vote with your feet, get the heck out of that bank. Find yourself a bank or credit union that won't gouge you for $5 a month and still will give you a debit card that you can use every single day." BofA CEO Brian Moynihan makes no apologies. He defended the fee in an interview with CNBC's Larry Kudlow: "I have an inherent duty as a CEO of a publicly-owned company to get a return for my shareholders," Moynihan said. "At the same time I have an inherent duty to do a great job to my customers."