Message to Bankers - Show A Little Appreciation!
In his famous half-hour comedy sketch The Blood Donor, Tony Hancock suggests that he should get a badge for doing this noble deed. “We should have something for people to pick us out by, he argues. Nothing grand, just a little enamel thing with a motto. Nothing pretentious, something like 'He gaveth to others so that others may live'.
I am wondering whether I should ask my bank for a little badge or some other token of appreciation. Because, when I come to think about it, I don’t receive much for my loyalty. All I get is an annual call from my ‘customer services representative’ who asks me if I am happy with the service, or would like something more. Always stumped by this question, I meekly reply that I am quite happy, and my customer services representative no doubts ticks the box on the computer screen and moves on to the next one. A year later I get the same call, from a different customer services representative. We go through the same charade, and having put the phone down, I think of all sorts of things that I might usefully have said.
Like ‘How come you don’t seem to know that I have had my account with your bank for thirty-five years?’ Or ‘Would you mind not lending my money to people who have got no chance of repaying it?’ Or ‘Would you kindly ask your superiors to stop punting my money around in fancy derivative instruments in the great zero-sum game known as interbank trading?’
Why are they indifferent?
I know why my bank seems pretty indifferent to my custom. There are two reasons. First of all I have gone overdrawn about twice in my life and can never ever remember not paying my credit card bill on time. So the bank does not make as much money out of me as it would if I transgressed and it was able to land me with a series of charges and penalties. The other reason is that it is just too damn difficult to move. To open a new bank account these days you just about have to rip out one of your own teeth and submit it for verification with your dental records. And even if I did move to another bank I don’t suppose I would notice any difference.
But still, in these days when supermarkets, airlines and just about any organization that manages to extract money from me offers all manner of incentives for my continuing patronage, the banks are pretty hopeless. To be honest, though, I don’t much care about this. I don’t really want yet another loyalty card crammed into my wallet? Life is too short. I already drive around the country in search of a BP garage just so that I can get some loyalty points. My wife insists upon booking us into totally unsuitable hotels just because she is in a ‘membership program.’ And I feel guilt every time I buy something at the chemist and fail to produce my Boots card.
I don’t know why I fall for all these ploys really, but then I guess we all like to feel we are getting something for nothing. But what does bug me about my bank is this. We know that banks have been lending and gambling recklessly. We know that they have been writing off losses at a billion bucks a time. Who is paying for this? Do we see bank directors falling upon their swords? Not that I have noticed. Do shareholders suffer? Yes, and that’s OK by me because anyone who trusts their money to a financial machine as complicated and obscure as a bank deserves everything they get. Do depositors, like me, suffer?
You bet we do! We know the tricks. Interest rates that are raised for borrowers but not for depositors. Inexplicable delays in passing on higher savings rates. Mysterious and totally arbitrary bank charges for minor transgressions. The complete and utter rip-off that is foreign exchange. The time it takes to process a cheque. In these and many other crafty ways the banks will, with our money, rebuild the balance sheets that they have so willfully ruined.
So forget the loyalty badge. What I would like from my bank is just a letter. It should say ‘Sorry that we have failed to look after your money with due care and attention. Sorry that we have gambled it away. Sorry that we will have to fleece you in the next few years to make up our losses. And thank you for your loyalty and patience.’
That should not be too difficult, should it?
P.S. If you want to follow the tales of a small company investor, and uncover the hidden gems of the stock market, then sign up for the Penny Sleuth e-letter. It won’t cost you a penny…