With the supreme court set to rule on high charges for bounced cheques and the Office of Fair Trading’s ongoing probe into unarranged overdraft fees, banks are taking pre-emptive action and scrabbling to find new income streams. Many will doubtless hit on the (hardly novel) idea of charging more widely for the services they provide: perhaps via a flat monthly fee, perhaps via transaction-related levies. Either way, they can expect a mass cry of “it’s not fair” from the Great British Depositor.

Naturally, these are the same people who will pay for service in restaurants, swallow retailers’ mark-ups and possibly even tip their hairdressers. Some will argue that, unlike Michelin-starred eateries and designer boutiques, banks are a social utility. Good point – and all the more reason to charge the non-indebted classes rather than subsidising them through egregious charges on those who fall into the red. These penalty fees pulled in about £3bn a year for the banks when the OFT investigation began in 2006. That is a big hole to plug and the banks owe it to their shareholders – who, let’s not forget, include the tax-paying public – to find ways of doing so.