So, who remembers when the banks used to charge you for current accounts?
I can, but it's a hazy memory. Yet for some time there have been hints that the banks are desperate to try and bring it back.
The trouble is that no one has the bottle to do it first and risk a backlash from account holders and ridicule in the media.
Last week HSBC's online banking arm First Direct announced it is to charge #10 per month for customers who do not deposit #1,500 per month or maintain an average balance of #1,500.
Is this the start of widespread charges being re-introduced?
Certainly leading banks have been putting it about for some time that free current account banking could end as they seek to recoup money lost as regulators clamp down on fees in other areas.
Earlier this year the Office of Fair Trading forced banks to cut penalties for the late payment of credit card bills. And the watchdog said in September it would look at charges for customers who overdraw their accounts and it would assess other penalty charges applied to current accounts.
Analysts have estimated the various clampdowns could cut annual bank revenues by about #1 billion.
A report by PricewaterhouseCoopers said banks were likely to reintroduce annual card fees to claw back these lost revenues. "We are likely to see a waterbed effect, whereby charges pushed down in one area pop up somewhere else," the accountancy firm said.
HSBC and Barclays introduced free banking about 20 years ago and Britain remains one of only a handful of countries not to charge customers who remain in credit. But banks are still making record profits.
First Direct charges will come into effect in February. It estimates less than 15 per cent of its 1.3 million customers will incur the fee, about 200,000 people.
Customers who did not meet the minimum balance or payment requirements can also avoid it by taking out another First Direct product, such as home insurance or a loan.
It comes in the face of a growing number of dormant and latent accounts – the bank says more than 40,000 accounts are not used and more than 250,000 see fewer than ten transactions a month.
Customers have been attracted to opening accounts with the bank as a result of a #50 incentive to switch. But is this all a one-off?
Stuart Glendinning, managing director at Moneysupermarket.com, said: "I would be amazed if other banks followed suit, it just will not happen.
"First Direct are clearing up their own mess. Their proposition is not compelling enough to attract new consumers and to combat this they have offered #50 payments to people opening accounts.
"They are the masters of their own downfall."
So, fingers crossed, then.
