How do I spot a new fee on my bank statement?

Make a list of fee descriptions

A fee comparison starts with the words and amounts actually printed on your records. Put the current statement beside an earlier one for the same account and currency. Write the date range of each at the top of your paper. Scan for rows labelled as fees or charges, copying the full description, date and amount. A description alone may leave the purpose unclear.

Worked example with made-up figures

Repeating

Fictional sample rent: A$270.97 / week
Telco One: A$11.06 / week
Fictional sample groceries: A$9.65 / week
Streamly: A$3.16 / week

Together A$294.84 a week.

Get your own answer, first one free

Match rows across statements

Draw columns for current description, current amount, earlier amount and source page. Match exact descriptions first. Put similar descriptions beside each other while retaining the original words. An unfamiliar label can be a renamed entry rather than a newly introduced fee. Keep unmatched rows marked as first seen in these records; that describes the evidence without assigning a cause.

Check the surrounding records

Look at any itemised fee section or attached account document available with the statements. Copy the relevant label and period beside the payment. A fee can relate to activity before the payment date, so write both dates if the record provides them. Keep purchases, interest entries and refunds on separate lines unless the document explicitly identifies them as part of the same fee.

Example: made-up figures

Imagine an earlier statement with a service fee of 10 and no other fee rows. The current statement shows the same service fee of 10 plus a separately labelled processing fee of 5. The listed fees total 10 and 15, an increase of 5. The processing fee is first seen in this pair of statements. These two records alone do not establish when the fee first existed.

Separate price from frequency

Count how often each fee description appears. One fee of 5 and three fees of 5 have the same amount per entry but totals of 5 and 15. Record both the count and the sum. If the current fee is 12 where the matched earlier fee was 10, the difference per entry is 2. A different count can add another change to the period total.

Finish with a checkable list

Tick each copied row on its source page and add the fee amounts again. List refunds as their own entries, then show a separate total after subtracting those refunds. Keep any explanation copied from an itemised record beside its page reference. Where the papers give only a label, retain that label as the finding. The result shows the recorded amounts and which entries first appear in your comparison.