CaixaBank charges up to €3 for branch cash deposits

CaixaBank charges nearly €3 for branch cash deposits

The scene repeats in any branch: someone arrives with banknotes to deposit them into an account and the teller informs them that this operation, the most basic of banking business, has a price. Nearly €3 fee —500 old pesetas— for accepting money that will swell the institution's coffers. The alternative offered to the customer is to do it at the ATM, where the machine doesn't give change and only accepts multiples of five.

The case is not limited to holders of their own accounts. Anyone who goes to pay for a service via cash deposit into a third party's account encounters the same charge, and with a revealing response: if they had an account at CaixaBank, the internal transfer would be free. The fee acts, de facto, as a toll for not being a customer.

From €2 to €3: how much does it cost to deposit cash?

Figures vary depending on the case and the institution. At CaixaBank, some testimonials mention €2 while others cite nearly €3; at Bankinter, a customer who went to deposit €16 to pay for a book encountered a €2 surcharge for putting cash into another customer's account at the same bank. At Banco Popular, the figure drops to between €0.50 and €1.50, and at the former NovaCaixaGalicia, €3 is applied to deposits into non-customer accounts.

The logic behind the charge doesn't withstand minimal accounting analysis. If a bank lends money, it charges interest. If a customer deposits their money, they are lending it to the bank. Charging to receive that loan inverts the traditional relationship between institution and citizen: the bank stops paying for liabilities and starts taxing them.

The ATM as a revolving door: the fine print of automatic deposits

The free option exists, but it has a catch. CaixaBank ATMs require multiples of €5 and do not return coins: anyone needing to deposit €64 inserts €65 and loses the difference in euros, unless an employee kindly invites them to become a customer with a promotion included. For a growing part of the clientele —elderly people, residents of municipalities with a single branch— the ATM is not a real alternative, but an obstacle that ends up normalizing the payment of the fee.

Some have proposed resistance from within the operation itself: depositing cent by cent, undoing coin cartridges, asking for the complaint form while the queue gets impatient. The bank's response to these tactics is already foreseen: the Banco de España allows rejecting coins that are not packaged.

CaixaBank is not an isolated case: the deposit fee spreads

The question running through the matter is whether it is a one-off decision or a trend. Signs point to the latter. Some claim that Sabadell has started applying similar practices, and that the old NovaCaixaGalicia was doing so before its integration. The most widespread reading is that banking consolidation —fewer institutions, larger ones— reduces competition and turns what was once an exception into the norm.

Against this scenario, online banking appears as a refuge. ING Direct does not charge fees for transfers or deposits, and institutions like Openbank or Evobanco present similar conditions. The problem is that many of those accounts require an associated physical account to deposit cash, which returns the customer to the same circuit they were trying to avoid.

Boycott, complaints and captive customers

The call to boycott runs through the conversation, but clashes with an uncomfortable reality: there are customers who cannot leave. A mortgage that requires direct debit of salary, a town with a single branch, a pending payment that prevents closing the account. The deposit fee does not hit everyone equally; it hits, above all, those with less room to choose.

The precedent of the school that withdrew all its accounts from an institution after it started charging €1 per deposit demonstrates that pressure works when it is collective. The question is whether individual customers are willing to make the same calculation. The answer, for now, is a trickle of cancellations and complaints that no one has quantified.