Banks. Love them or hate them at some point you have to use one of them. It may well be to you (and me) a grudge service and grudge payment when the fees come off but it may be for most of the time better than keeping the money under the mattress.Their collective greed, along with their future gazing at the markets has in the past few years been partly and probably largely to blame for the financial meltdown (the other part of course is the individual greed that fueled their ever more imaginative credit giving schemes) and its a bit like them towards their customers, I have little liking or sympathy for them when they fall over. I have ventured into quite a few different bank branches since arriving here on these shores and I can say with certainty that for all the first worldness and efficiency of this country, the presentation of their banking leaves a lot to be desired.
I am hardly an expert in these matters and it could well be that this is the way it is done here in the modern world, maybe what I am used to is the smoke and mirrors of SA banking, where it must look good, and it must talk good and it is must be simpler better and faster and maybe wear trainers / takkies on a Friday to speed things up. Maybe it is better here I don't know. But I do know this, to get a cheque cleared on a special clearance depends completely on the postal service. This surprised me. To deposit cash takes an awful long time because each note is counted by hand, there is no such thing as using a cash counter type thingymejig. Oh no, by hand it is. And as the queue stretches behind you to infinity you wonder if maybe they think differently. There will be an argument that due to these times of austerity their branches have not been invested in. Some of the decoration I have seen I think goes back to the 80's and lets put this into perspective. The banks are still making billions, there is still no danger of the bartering system coming back in.
So what is good about them? Well, it seems that they don't advertise a whole lot. No I haven't seen too many bill boards with the proverbial Marlborough man type advertising, there are a few adverts on TV ( and the ones there are don't feature every racial group in the country) but not nearly as many as what I became used to, there are no revolving and one in at a time doors at the branches. Opening a bank account here is considered a necessity and not a lifestyle choice and I think that's the difference. But like a said, I am not an expert. Fees are reasonable in comparison, ATM withdrawals I think are free, the teller can pay an account for you from your account to a different bank and they don't ask for an ID book every two minutes. But personal banking security is tight, a thing called pin Sentry seems to be the norm - but a bank is a bank, they still try their damnedest to get your money out of you but they're just a bit better and nicer at being greedy.
Anyway, I hope this hasn't bored you too much. I am still in the observing the differences phase here and like I've said its a year in my life....
Until tomorrow.
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