Coffee shop and the bank

I had a bowl of wanton noodle for $2.50 at a coffee shop. I looked at the ingredients that make up this meal - noodle, soup, meat, chili and more. I thought about at the labor that went into the preparation and the rental that has to be paid for the stall. How can the stall holder survive on the profit margin that goes into this bowl of noodles?

I then thought about the charge of $50 that my bank imposes on a late payment on a credit card and the charge of $80 to transfer a small sum of money. How much does it cost the bank to handle each transaction? It seems to take less labor that making a bowl of noodle.

The banks, which makes billions of dollars of profit a year, forget that many people in Singapore have to work 8 hours a day to earn $50, which is the amount that they charge for a small banking service. Perhaps our Government, which gives the licence to the bank to operate the essential banking service, also forgets this point.

We cannot rely on the free market to determine the banking fees, as there is virtually no competition and the banks are happy to operate a cartel on these excessive charges. The Government has to regulate the fees charged by banks for essential banking services to be at a reasonable level.

Tan Kin Lian