If Bank of America thought that imposing a hefty debit card fee on retail customers might spark a rush by other banks to do the same, it has been proven wrong. While there were some regional banks that piled onto the bandwagon--such as Regions and SunTrust-we're now seeing other national banks move in the opposite direction. JPMorgan, which had been running a debit card fee pilot program in Georgia and Wisconsin, has said that it will end the program and that it will not make the fee permanent. Wells Fargo has likewise cancelled a test in five states, without making the fee permanent. In both cases, many previously thought that the pilots were mere preludes to a national debit fee. Even Bank of America, according to the LATimes, is now considering ways to make it easier for customers to avoid the fee. The bank is "is likely to allow customers to sidestep the fee if they use Bank of America credit cards in addition to debit cards, have certain direct deposits or maintain a minimum balance." The previous plans was to waive the fee only if a customer had a mortgage or $20,000 at the bank and its Merrill Lynch brokerage. In the end, the public backlash was likely much more intense than Bank of America executives expected. One could argue that this latest misstep was the product of faulty marketing analysis; the fee might have been rolled out better. The pilot programs at JPMorgan and Wells certainly didn't cause quite as much backlash, and such programs offered the flexibility to cancel the programs if they didn't work out. Bank of America might have followed that model.

For more:
- here's the LATimes article
- here's an article from CBS on other big banks