All banks are cut from the same cloth - another one from aJamaa

I went to open a bank account jana since my employer insists that they cannot pay me in cash and they consider giving cheques to be cashed over the counter to be unreasonable. Its a conspiracy you see. The banks convince employers that paying employees by EFT is convenient for them since they do not have to undertake the risk of handling cash and that senior management have better stuff to do than sign cheques. As a result anybody in employment or in certain lines of business has to open a bank account. Making your product a necessity is probably the best way to guarantee success of your business.

A few years back NIC introduced a new product (they called it innovative but there was nothing innovative about it iPods and DVDs are innovative a change in pricing is not) that had fixed charge of 800/= per month. In return the account holder would enjoy a myriad of services they did not need. Now 800/= per month comes to 9,600/= a year. 9,600/= a year is one months rent, can buy a descent DVD player, cell phone, suit e.t.c In my mind the benefit NIC purport to provide does not compare with a new DVD player or phone every year. The product was so successful that a Stanchart introduced a similar product for an affordable fee of 750/= and Barclays have now joined the bandwagon with a buquet of similar products priced at between 450/= and 1250/= depending on the range of unnecessary services you select. I spit on all of them and continue to maintain a bank account in protest.

A few months ago Stanchart started advertising personal loans again. They discontinued the product last year after interest rates short up from 0.8% to 8% and when they realised that in the eagerness to give out personal loans to all and sundry they had fallen victim to fraudsters. Honestly how can a thief complain about another thief stealing what they had stolen. I feel nothing for them. Anyway, the interest rate on the loan was either 19% or 21% my memory fails me. At around the same time they also introduced high interestn(5.5%) fixed deposit account with a minimum balance of 250K. Essentially if I gave Stanchart 250K they would pay me interest of 5.5% while if I borrowed the same amount from them they would charge me 19%. Making a reasonable margin is fare but the kind of margin they are earning is not right.

So like I was saying I had to open a bank account yesterday. I made it very clear to the consultant dealing with me that I wanted the most basic account. Basically one that can receive my salary and allow me to withdraw all of it as soon as possible. I was not interested in their high interest rate saving account, overdraft facilities, SMS banking or Internet banking. The charges I would have to incur or minimum balance I would have to maintain would not be comparable to the service provided. Below I compare charges on my new account to my Kenyan account.

- they will charge me a standing charge of 65/= per month in Kenya I am charged 500/= per month
- they require me to maintain at least 500/= but wont pay me interest on it. In Kenya I have a current account so endeavour to keep my balance at 0/=
- the will charge me 50/= every time I use the ATM unlike home where I am charged 25/= Remember they introduced ATMs to reduce their overhead costs but choose to charge us for the service
- They will charge me 30 + 0.9% of any amount I deposit through the ATM or over the counter. So if I start a biashara of selling curios they basically do not want my money. They want to keep things nice and simple with money coming in only once a month
- they will charge me 300 bop for withdrawing over the counter. Considering I cannot withdraw more than 15K at a time and I dont get a cheque book they mean to say they deserve 300 bop if I want to buy a TV, System or car
- And my favourite they will charge me 500/= for clearing a cheque and then take a cool 7 working days to clear the cheque. I bet the will not count the day I deposit the cheque as a day so it will actually be 8 days. Here Kenya beats them hands down with the 4 clear working days.

At least they did not require me to get a letter of introduction from one of their customers.