Community West Bank Eliminates Fees for Account Overdrafts

Source: Community West Bank

Community West Bank today announced the elimination of non-sufficient funds (NSF) fees for overdrafts on personal checking accounts, beginning in February.  The bank will also eliminate the transfer fee from savings accounts for overdraft protection and the daily overdraft fee for personal accounts, beginning in February.  Every Community West Bank personal checking account client is eligible for the elimination of these fees, without requirements or restrictions.

“Eliminating fees for overdrafts on personal accounts reflects our focus on providing financial service to help assist underserved clients,” said Bill Filippin, President.  “Community West Bank is taking a leadership position on this issue in the communities we serve on California’s Central Coast, and we are committed to offering services which enable our clients to protect their accounts from overdrafts.”

A Consumer Financial Protection Bureau report issued in December 2021 found nationally that NSF and overdraft fees disproportionately impact small balance account holders and vulnerable communities.  

As many as 95% of consumers nationally who paid overdraft fees in 2020 were financially vulnerable, according to the 2021 FinHealth Spend Report.  Among financially vulnerable households with checking accounts, over 40% averaged 9 or more overdrafts during 2020, resulting in annual overdraft fees of hundreds of dollars per household on average.

About Community West Bank
Community West Bank is a wholly owned subsidiary of Community West Bancshares (NASDAQ: CWBC), a financial services company with headquarters in Goleta, California. Community West Bank first opened its doors on August 21, 1989 as Goleta National Bank, at 5827 Hollister Avenue – a site that remains a Community West Bank branch office today.  The bank changed its name to Community West Bank in September 2004 to better reflect its growth beyond Santa Barbara County.  Community West Bank is the largest publicly traded and only community bank headquartered and serving California’s Central Coast area of Ventura, Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties with full-service banking branch offices in Goleta, Oxnard, Paso Robles, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, Santa Maria and Ventura and has grown to over one billion dollars in assets.  In April 2021, Community West Bank was awarded a “Super Premier Performance” rating by The Findley Reports.  In September 2021, Community West Bank was named to Piper-Sandler’s Bank and Thrift Sm-All Stars – Class of 2021, recognizing the bank as one of the top 35 best performing small capitalization institutions from a list of publicly traded banks and thrifts in the U.S. with market capitalizations less than $2.5 billion.  For more information, visit www.CommunityWestBank.com.

Safe Harbor Disclosure
This release contains forward-looking statements that reflect management’s current views of future events and operations.  These forward-looking statements are based on information currently available to the Company as of the date of this release.  It is important to note that these forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and involve risks and uncertainties, including, but not limited to, the ability of the Company to implement its strategy and expand its lending operations.