Free banking is something that we Brits cherish. Like our fondness for chicken tikka masala, cups of tea and The X Factor, it unites the nation. But perhaps it is time that we got over it.

The decision, anyway, may soon be taken out of our hands. As their income streams come under attack like never before, it seems only a matter of time before banks begin charging more widely for the services they provide.

New regulations proposed by the Government threaten to impose a raft of extra expenses on the banks. This week a consultation paper suggested a number of measures to stop credit card firms exploiting customers through confusing fine print and other questionable practices. All sensible stuff, but Nationwide Building Society reckons that the proposals could cost banks more than £500 million in lost revenue. Just a week earlier, we learnt of tighter curbs on the sale of mortgages that, among other things, could mean applicants grilled about how much they drink. More intrusive application checks means more costs — and who will pay? Consumers, of course.

Add to the mix the Supreme Court’s imminent ruling on whether high charges for bounced cheques and overdrafts are unfair. If the banks lose and are forced to cut overdraft fees — some already have, suggesting that they expect to fail — they can wave goodbye to an estimated £10 billion.

Another few billion could go up in flames because of a crackdown on the sale of payment protection insurance. On Wednesday, Swinton, the insurance broker, was fined £770,000 and ordered to refund more than 350,000 customers.

All these measures have consumer protection at their heart, but we should not fool ourselves that they are cost-free. If all the plans are pushed through, the banks will have a huge hole to plug in their finances.

That may spell the end to free banking as we know it, as monthly fees become the norm. Or perhaps we will have to pay charges for each transaction, like our continental and American peers.

Most people’s initial response will be to cry “unfair”. But there is also a profound unfairness in the current system. The banks are not charities and they provide a service for which someone has to pay. At present, a lot of their revenue comes from sneaky “penalty” charges, which fall disproportionately on low earners and the financially illiterate.

A more transparent and honest way of charging would be preferable to the underhand and morally dubious system currently employed. If that means that we all end up being charge a few pounds a month for the running of our account, it seems to me like a price worth paying.

However, if fee-charging banking becomes the norm, consumers need two guarantees. The first is that there is proper competition to keep charges in check. The five main players (HSBC, Barclays, RBS, Lloyds and Santander, which owns Abbey) maintain an unhealthy stranglehold on the market. Moves to break up this cosy cartel have to come from the top.

The second is that service improves — radically. The Financial Services Authority revealed this week that it had received more than a million complaints about banks in the first half of this year, nearly half a million from current account customers alone. If banks want to charge as standard, such poor service needs to end, once and for all. If things don’t improve, customers will have every justification to cry unfair.

Money purchase is not final salary’s poor relation

There was more evidence this week that final-salary pension schemes are heading for extinction. Figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) showed that the number of workers in private-sector-run final-salary schemes has fallen to a record low of 2.6 million, down from 2.7 million in 2007 and 3 million the year before.

This means that more workers are being forced to shift into money purchase schemes, a trend that is going to accelerate in years to come.

The conventional view is that this is a disaster for employees. But, as a concept, money-purchase schemes have been unfairly demonised.

Saving into a money-purchase plan need not necessarily leave you worse off in retirement. For the individual these schemes are riskier, because there are no guarantees, but money-purchase pensions are also more portable and can be easier to understand.

That isn’t to deny that they have their problems. Many companies use the shift from final salary to money purchase to slash the contributions they are making.

The ONS found that the average employer contribution to a money purchase plan is equivalent to 6 per cent of salary, compared with 15 per cent to a final-salary scheme. A reduction in contributions is to be expected — final-salary schemes are closing because they are too expensive to run — but members need to make sure that they are not being short-changed.

Employers and insurers that run the schemes also make it difficult for members to make the right choices at retirement.

As we report on page 91, many leave customers in the dark about the potential benefits of using the open-market option to get the best income from their pension.

If members properly understood their rights and the choices available to them, money purchase need not be final salary’s poor relation.