Finance minister urges lowering of bank fees

Israel’s leading bank directors and managers must lower bank fees and increase transparency for costumers, Finance Minister Yair Lapid said Thursday.

In a special meeting with a number of prominent heads of Israeli banks, Lapid called on the representatives to ease the barriers for small and medium businesses to obtain bank credit at an affordable rate.

“The stability of the banks in the business environment in which they operate is important to us and we will maintain it,” Lapid said.

“At the same time, we must take immediate action to encourage competition and innovation in the banking sector. The cost of banking services to households and small businesses is too high and we must reduce it,” he concluded.

Lapid’s Yesh Atid party ran in the January 2013 elections on a platform of helping middle-class families squeezed by the country’s high cost of living.