Will Banks’ Bottom Lines Suffer From a Campus Crackdown? – Bank of America Corp (BAC) and More

More important than the revenue from any one year is the revenue banks will make from customers over their lifetime (or relationship with the bank.) Although $7.7 million is a drop in the bucket of Chase’s annual revenues, those 96,000 new accounts is nothing to laugh at. College students with their first credit card become first-time homebuyers with their first mortgage or drivers with their first car loan.

The bank that seems to understand this more than any other is Bank of America Corp (NYSE:BAC) . Its subsidiary, FIA Card Services, has a whopping 633 agreements with colleges across the country, accounting for 1.26 million new customer accounts in 2011 and $44.7 million in revenue.

The Foolish bottom line
On-campus marketing is nothing new. College students are consumers in the making. But predatory lending practices targeting young students who aren’t savvy enough to realize the many hidden fees or fine print that can come along with a financial product — and colleges that make them part of daily life — can have disastrous long-term consequences for individuals just beginning to build credit.

But conducting investigations and crafting and implementing any subsequent regulations constitute a lengthy process. If there’s anything we’ve learned over the past few years, it’s the large banks that have an almost uncanny ability to bob and weave around whatever consumer advocates throw at them and remain virtually unscathed.

The article Will Banks’ Bottom Lines Suffer From a Campus Crackdown? originally appeared on Fool.com and is written by Molly McCluskey.

Molly McCluskey has no position in any stocks mentioned. Follow her on Twitter @MollyEMcCluskey. The Motley Fool owns shares of Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, and PNC Financial Services (NYSE:PNC).

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