Four big banks commit felonies, and a banker calls it “an embarrassment.” Banks squeeze money from people with puny savings and checking accounts, and bankers pass it off as “banking fees.”

No matter what the euphemism, we all pay the price for bank brutality.

The most recent example was a five-year scam in which Citicorp, JP-Morgan Chase, Barclays and Royal Banks of Scotland made $85 billion by conspiring to rig the value of the world’s currencies. That’s what those financial entities pleaded guilty to last month.

The punishment — $9 billion in fines and the banks are on “corporate probation” for three years. Slap on the wrist. After getting caught and pleading guilty to a criminal conspiracy, the banks will still make a nearly 11 percent return on their money.

Just try to get anywhere near that on the savings account you have squirreled away at your bank. The average paid on a savings account is a pitiful 0.06 percent.

On top of that insult is the injury of fees and excessive charges. Trying to figure out how much a bank charges and for what can be challenging. In April the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, for the first time since it was established in 2011, took enforcement action against a bank for violating regulations governing overdraft fees.

The bureau, which was authorized by the Dodd-Frank Act as a legislative response to the financial crisis of 2007-08, fined Georgia-based Regions Bank $7.5 million for charging overdraft fees to hundreds of thousands of consumers who had not opted-in for overdraft coverage. The fine was in addition to a consent order with the bureau requiring the bank to pay back affected consumers.

Richard Cordray, director of the bureau, said consumers paid $49 million in illegal charges because Regions Bank in effect tricked customers by allowing them to link their checking accounts to savings accounts or lines of credit and then automatically transferred in amounts to cover a shortage in the customers’ checking accounts.

Regions failed to provide customers with linked accounts an opportunity to decide for themselves whether they wanted overdraft protection. Regions could have saved them fees by declining ATM or one-time debit card transactions that exceeded the available balance in the checking and linked accounts, but the bank did not do that.

Why? Because then it would have missed the opportunity to tack on an overdraft fee of $36 for every transaction where it transferred funds to cover the amount that exceeded the balance. In doing so, Regions violated a 2010 Federal Reserve System rule requiring banks to stop automatically enrolling debit card users in overdraft programs and to offer customers the opportunity to opt-in if they wanted.

Banks were making billions off the practice — nearly $40 billion in 2009 before the Federal Reserve, which regulates banks along with other federal and state authorities, put an end to it.

“We take the issue of overdraft fees very seriously and will be vigilant about making sure that consumers receive the protections they deserve,” Cordray said when announcing the enforcement action taken against Regions Bank.

That wasn’t Regions’ only transgression. The bank also charged overdraft and non-sufficient funds fees with a separate service it offered, although it had claimed it would not. That meant if the bank collected payment from the customer’s checking account and the collection caused the balance to drop below zero, the bank would either cover the transaction and charge an overdraft fee or reject its own transaction and charge a non-sufficient funds fee.

Talk about getting you coming and going. Regions made about $1.9 million from 36,000 customers over about two years with this scheme.

Expecting banks to give up this sort of money without some backsliding was wishful thinking. Many banks figured out other ways to recoup the money. Among them: Charging for a variety of services that were formerly free or offered for a nominal charge and charging for an unlimited quantity of overdraft fees and then manipulating the timing of when charges were posted. These are all ways banks continue to punish the holders of small savings and checking accounts who make the mistake of trusting their banks.

Consumer groups call overdraft fees “high-cost loans,” and suggest customers make sure they have not unwittingly opted-in for such coverage. Another gimmick to watch out for: higher monthly “maintenance fees” imposed on some accounts unless customers have mortgage loans or stash substantial amounts in their low-interest savings accounts.

While tucking the money under a mattress is not advisable, it may be appealing to nervous savers. Better to understand your consumer rights and check out every detail of your account with your bank.

— St. Louis Post-Dispatch