PNC debuts new digital offering to help customers avoid up to $150M in annual overdraft fees

PITTSBURGH — PNC Financial Services Group Inc. on Tuesday announced a new digital offering to help its customers avoid approximately $125 million to $150 million in overdraft fees annually.

“With this new tool, we’re able to shift away from the industry’s widely used overdraft approach, which we believe is unsustainable,” William Demchak, PNC chairman, president and CEO said in a prepared statement. “Low Cash Mode is a great example of how advances in our technology allow us to better align with a core principle of supporting our customers’ financial well-being. This is the right move for our customers and the bank.”

Built on patent-pending technology, Low Cash Mode comes with the spend account inside of PNC’s Virtual Wallet and gives customers payment control, including the power to prioritize by determining whether certain debits — checks and ACH transactions — are processed that otherwise might result in overdrafts, rather than the common industry practice of the bank making the decision. Real-time intelligent alerts let customers know when their balance is low and, if it is negative, Low Cash Mode provides at least 24 hours of extra time to prevent or address overdrafts before fees are charged.