ATM relationships

I had a rant accompanying last week’s column on the demonetisation issue which I decided to post on my Facebook page on Monday, on account of Unit Trust’s "all together" line despite the sign that said, "Senior Citizens and Disabled."

A few people commented on the post, all voicing annoyance at financial institutions’ apparent lack of concern for customers (Note: "Customers" – the people YOU need to finance your profits).

UTC, to be fair, has always been trustworthy, yet what happened last week I can only read as a ripple effect of the leadership of this nation and the desperation on UTC’s part to manage the flow of people. Desperation, however, can often lead people to seek our own interests rather than the customer’s. This is akin to being stuck on a deserted island after a plane wreck: food runs out and you begin seeing your human companion as food. Soon, you are alone wondering where everybody went.

In my imagination, this is what many of our banks represent –the cannibals that greed for resources creates.

Just to emphasise how inconvenient the situation is for some taxpaying individuals, a friend who had been MIA for the past two weeks phoned as I was writing this, to touch base.

“It’s been so hectic! I keep money at home and this demonetisation has me now running almost every day to stand for three and four hours in the lines to change my money.

"And what about all those people who don’t trust banks and government?

"The blasted money launderers already sell their money in some casino! I hope Imbert and them eat the fake cheese they ordering from foreign and get sick and have to end up in the hospital that never open to be looked after by the children educated at the Imbert school!

"All these lawyers, waste of time too. This is a human rights issue, constitutional issue!”

Another friend: ‘It’s a racket, these banks. Their only function really is the ease of handling money and the security.

"But it comes at a cost. They charge you exorbitant amounts of money for withdrawing your own money, charge you this, that, the other.

"Let’s forget the so-called criminals and businessmen the government says it is trying to weed out. They already know them and those aren’t the people they are going after.

"The people most hard-hit are the functionally literate people – farmers, vendors, fishermen – who do not trust banks.

"And they are right! When you think about it, you are being charged for withdrawing your own money, for depositing your own money, for opening an account. But now, they are being forced into institutions that they have avoided because the PNM, again, is serving itself."

While most people in my circle agree that the new bill is brilliant, braille being a good selling point, none agree with the justification for this mass fearmongering and mess.

There is overall, a sense of a lack of trust in the financial institutions: hence co-operatives, sou sou for instance, like-minded people, as one friend described it, who came together to look after each other’s interests. Yes, there was profit to be had, but it isn’t the soul-sucking profits that banks are bent on earning. How much profit is enough?

I remember speaking on occasions to an ex-minister and a retired judge, in whose old age, the death of most of their friends had left them adrift in a sense. Among these talks were dreams (the kinds of dreams we shoot down in children), never realised, and over which an esteemed, and wealthy man can be brought to tears.

No amount of wealth compensates for the joy of building strong relationships. But this sounds like new-age spiritual nonsense and people may say "middle-class words." And I reply, "So be it." I suppose, in old age and sickness, your things can look after you well enough.

It is interesting to speak to people from the baby boomers’ generation (which isn’t that far back), whose memory of banking is of a sector that was phenomenally (and yes, this is the right word when one thinks of the many banking advisers today) more interested in their customers. These were institutions populated by employees who knew their jobs, who explained thoroughly the uses of a credit card, for instance.

Banking has changed, like most things. And it isn’t all positive. The lines (and the demographics matter) tell a story, and one of those is a story of distrust.

I find this an even more important point to note than money laundering since we haven’t had the most transparent and citizen-centred administrations anyway.

Perhaps rather than grinning about who selling pholourie and pumpkin, we should be looking at the effects of distrust on an economy.