The woman, who was identified as Deng, received a notice yesterday from the city's Xuhui District Court, that it would hear her case.

Deng asked the four defendants to compensate her 1.5 yuan (19 US cents) for "unjust" inquiry fees, the newspaper said.

She reportedly noticed extra charges taken from her account for the inquiries she made at an ATM in China's Bank of Communication's sub-branch in Caohejing on June 14.

She immediately asked a bank clerk and discovered that the four big state owned banks and the Bank of Communication had kicked off inquiry fee charges on June 1.

When she applied for a Bank of Communication's bank card on July 2003, she was told that the bank wouldn't be charging her inquiry fees, for trans-bank use or inter-bank use. "The banks didn't even notify me about the new charges on my bills," Deng said.

She sued China Unionpay, the Caohejing sub-branch of Bank of Communication, the Caohejing sub-branch of Industrial and Commercial Bank of China and the Shanghai branch of China's Construction Bank.

Wu Dong, a Shanghai lawyer, said the banks breached the bank-client contract because there are no rules stipulated in their articles of association or in customer agreements about inquiry fees. "They haven't reached a new agreement with their customers," he added.

Already, three individual commercial banks have set up additional inquiry fees unanimously, which may be a manipulation of the price and a breach of the price law, Wu said.

Whether to charge customers inquiry fees and how much to charge lies on the standards issued by the Banking Regulatory Commission, the central bank and the State Council, whereas, it should be controlled by the government, Wu said.

An industry insider said a regulation on banking service fees issued in October 2003 stipulates commercial banks have the right to determine and adjust the prices of some chargeable services. However, they should hold a hearing before hand in accordance with the price law, he added.