IF the credit crunch has taught us one thing, it is that in general banks are no longer run for customers. Their priority is the shareholder and, as the old saying goes, a man cannot work for two masters.
It was the desire to make more money to appease shareholders and yield ever-higher profits that led to outrageous bonuses for risky, pie-in-the-sky economics and ultimate global collapse.
Had they been following the old-fashioned ideals of lookin
g after the customers' interests and above all, safeguarding the savings they already had, they would not have been left exposed and vulnerable.
They wouldn't have made so many millions, but then they wouldn't have lost them.
Like most ordinary folk in the street, I was hoping that – presuming we survive without another Thirties-style depression – some good would come of all of this.
It is perhaps too much to expect we could turn the clock back to the days of prudent banking and putting the customer first, but at least we might look forward to more caution and responsibility from bankers.
Today they need our money like never before and so, following best advice available, we set off to split our savings and increase our cover under the deposit guarantee scheme. It is not sensible to put all your eggs in one basket, or all your pennies in one bank.
We were advised that Bank A was a good choice. We phoned to make an appointment and were told none was necessary so we pitched up at the branch in the city centre. At least that's what it said on the door.
Inside it looked more like an amusement arcade, infused with red, womb-like lighting and a bank of high-tech screens along one wall. A lone receptionist sat at a round desk and, on hearing we wanted to open an account, summoned a colleague who led us over to another touch screen. All very high-tech and expensive-looking.
"Right now the wait is anything between 30 and 43 minutes . . . approximately," she said.
"Okay, how about we go for a coffee and come back?" I suggested.
"Well, it could be less than 30 minutes – and then you'd lose your place in the queue."
"So how long can we go away for?"
She shrugged, she couldn't say, it was anyone's guess. It was beginning to seem less like an amusement arcade and more like waiting your turn in a takeaway or a shoe shop.
Now I realise we are not Bransons or Beckhams but we were about to lodge a substantial part of our life savings. In order to do this we were expected to hang around for up to 43 minutes – "approximately" – presumably on the basis that we had nothing better to do with our time. And, as everybody in this city knows, time is money, especially when your car's on a meter.
We didn't even need to discuss it. We are of that age that still expects some element of customer service and consideration.
If we were unimpressed with the process of opening an account, what chance we'd be satisfied with the service that followed? So we simply toddled down the street to Bank B, where we made an appointment and subsequently had our meeting and signed our forms in a wood panelled room furnished with high-backed leather chairs and a traditional oak desk, both of which had probably been there for at least 30 years. It looked, and felt, like a bank should, especially in a credit crunch – reassuring, solid and dependable.
It was only later we found out from a banker relative that ten years ago, Bank B was seen in financial circles as a bit of a stick-in-the-mud, backwardly insisting on minimising risk for customers and refusing to embrace the dynamic, profitable but unsustainable global tactics that so obsessed its competitors.
As a result, today it is laughing all the way to . . . well, the bank. So far, so good. Will it continue to operate that way, or will it eventually succumb to a new generation of profit-chasing risk takers?
Will other banks see the error of their ways or are they now locked in to finding new areas of dangerous speculation in order to meet the demands of shareholders?
No doubt financiers, hedge fund managers and banking experts have a different, more financially clued-up take on things, could debate and justify the issues of short-selling, sub-prime markets et al for days on end and will dismiss the concerns of laymen like me as over- simplified and uninformed.
But that's precisely the smart Alec attitude that got us into this mess. Even a kid with a piggy bank knows you don't lend money to someone who can't pay it back. It's not rocket science.
Right now the banks need saving customers and when the dust settles the only thing the customer will really want to know is, have they learned their lesson?
The full article contains 842 words and appears in Edinburgh Evening News newspaper.
