Kiwibank found sense- lower dishonour fees

I received this message from Kiwibank:

"From 1 October 2009, we're changing our penalty fees. We're reducing the dishonour fee from $30 to $7.50 and reducing the account out of order fee to $10 per month. Also, we'll no longer charge an honour fee."

This is quite a relief: a few weeks ago I found that a rent payment and power payment had not gone through, and that I had been charged two $30 dollar dishonour fees as a result, (that being the equivalent of two weeks grocery money). I did eventually get the money back after some protest and greasing, but it still left me wondering what exactly the fee was for. As it is an electronic transaction, there should be no staff hours required to deal with it. The payment did not go through, there was no overdraft, so it is most definitely not part of an unapproved loan fee. They offered me this explanation:

"If Kiwibank did not charge dishonour fees, or charged less then $30.00 when these payments did not go through, many people would consistently allow their payments to dishonour."

(I wonder if this will be the result of their new policy change to a $7.50 fee)

"This causes work for Kiwibank staff, systems and also impacts the reputation the bank has with outside organisations.

If Kiwibank gained a reputation of regularly dishonouring payments, or if a lot of Kiwibank cheques were dishonoured, other companies may start refusing to accept Kiwibank account numbers or cheques as a method of payment. To ensure that our reputation is maintained a dishonour fee is charged when a payment is dishonoured."

Perhaps I can understand this cheque dishonour fees, but in the case of pre-programmed electronic transfers would this not simply impact on the "reputation" or credit rating or whatever of the person whose payment didn't go through? Keep in mind that these are often used to pay kids' weekly allowances etc.