When nearly every other financial institution realized they couldn't get away with charging people for the privilege of accessing their own money, Bank of America held on, trying as hard as they could to get $60 a year from their customers. Well, it turns out that even banking giant B of A can't simply impose their will to get what they want, as they are now abandoning the planned fees.

Bank of America Corp. has dropped its plan to charge customers $5 a month for making purchases with their debit cards, responding to a customer backlash after the fee was announced in September.

The move is the highest-profile retreat following decisions by several rivals in recent days to drop customer tests of the new fees. SunTrust Banks Inc. and Regions Financial Corp. also said Monday that they will stop charging customers for debit-card transactions. The announcements also follow decisions last week by Wells Fargo & Co. and J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. to drop customer tests of the new fees.

Bank of America decided against the fees due to negative customer feedback on the plan and the moves by rivals, which left the Charlotte, N.C., lender as the only big bank planning to levy the fee on some customers next year.