The Bad Banks League Table!

I thought, based on much publicity everywhere, that as from May 27th, electronic trasnfers btetween banks would be done on a 'same day' basis. Well apparantly the banks never saw this. Last week (June 2nd 2008) I transferred just under £2000 from one part of the Abbey group to another. It appeared in the destination bank two days later on June 4th. So the Abbey at least is still continuing to steal interest from us.
When I phoned them up, they already had a long list of FAQ ready to read from as to why they were still in 'steal' mode. Apparantly May 27th was the day the banks had agreed to start thinking about becoming honest. They might get round to same day electronic trasnfers some time later this year. The Abbey group at least have no idea when this will be. "Late Summer possibly" they said.

So come on media, please don't tell us all how important May 27th was to be, when it has no significance at all.

In the 1960' and 70's the Bank's were actively seeking "the unbanked" so as to expand their customer bases. The only people that had bank accounts then were the more well shod high at heel types. Charges were based on notional value of balances against commission raised on entries.
You didn't get the miserable whining lot that you have now; this 'lot' should never be allowed to have bank accounts. 'They' think they have the right to overdraw at will, run their accounts to dormant debit balances and then disappear. Someone has to pay for that.
The Bank's MUST go back to the former days on their charging methods because it is the only fair way. If you haven't got the dosh use your back pocket, only the good and reliable will have bank accounts and won't that be wonderful.
NO! their should not be league tables unless it is publishing the names and addresses of the 'bad' customers.

When I worked for a high street bank 20 years ago it was possible to "truncate" payments between branches of the same bank so that payments would be credited at a different branch on the next day. However this was rarely if ever done.

If they had the technology to do this twenty years ago I am sure they could quite easily stop making money off my money and do it now!!

Having said that I have banked wuth the Nationwide for about 12 years and I am perfectly happy with them on the basis of service and interest payable - however I am sure they could improve!

I speak to many banks and building societies in the course of work and almost without exception they are claiming to have moved away from product-driven strategies to customer-centric initiatives. They all know that products are both commoditised and easily & quickly copied. They know full-well that the internet has changed the business models completely and for the first time changed the balance of power in the business relationship by empowering customer choice.
They therefore freely acknowledge that the only way to compete and differentiate from their peers is by added-value services and more customer-friendly initiatives.
Executives called Directors/Managers of Customer Experience or Customer Quality are sprouting everywhere.
They are also rapidly developing tools and methods to measure the effectiveness of their success in this regard - such as speed of response to complaints and effectiveness of complaints resolution.
The fact that they are therefore putting so much store by their new capabilities in this regard, and having to deliver more concrete ways of measuring their investment in both people/training and bespoke Customer Relationship Management (CRM) technologies, should suggest they would have no problem in increasing the external transparency of these results in some form of a league table. It should be easy enough to aggregate this data in a common/consistent format that does not divulge or compromise individual specific details, but still providing customers (both business and retail) with some basis on which to make an informed decision about whether to engage - rather than just on products and interest rates, which the banks themselves have already agreed are not effective ways of demonstrating competitive differences.

RE: electronic transfers etc. on the continent such as in The Netherlands you can make an electronic transfer to any account any bank which clears within 24 hours. You are not charged for being overdrawn as the bank simply keeps your account in negative until you put funds in there. Dutch people are very vocal about their expectations so when banks behave badly there is a national outcry. We should be more vocal here, after all having hard earned your money of course you should have the pick of what is on offer and the banks should be working harder to attract customers, those who are complacent or scrupulous should be shamed.

Yes please to Bad Banks lists - just have a look at the posts on the recent MF article on Abbey (Britain's best all-round bank?)for a list of serious grievances. My experience with them over a series of major problems dealing with a death was that they paid out £££s in compensation when we made formal complaints but there was no sign that they had any intention of changing their ways, suggesting that they are making plenty of profits under their present systems and can afford to pay off anyone who gets stroppy. Only real publicity will force them to change.

I am employed by one of the leading high street banks as a manager and in the top 2% in the country for my sales performance. What our customers need to know is that we are not well paid for what we do quite the opposite and do see our customers frustrations with bank charges slow payment process etc. I am 100% behind customer service first but am under constant pressure to over my sales target sand even though I do it is never good enough. We are forced to go to endless pointless meetings which are supposed to 'enhance' our sales performances. I am sucessful because I am totally behind giving excellent customer service and people do buy people but the bank just does not see this. So next time you are venting your anger in your local bank you just may find that the person in there is being paid 'Indian' wages and is sat there in pure frustration because they actually agree with you but their hands are tied. Write in and complain. If you do the banks will have to take notice as at the end of the day you the customer are paying our poor wages and the shareholders high dividends!

Maybe we should all do what so many OAPs do; ignore the banks and do all our banking and bill paying via the Post Office. I used to think this practice was outmoded and ill-advised for the 21st century, after all, I can hardly waltz into NatWest to mail a letter or buy stamps. But, to quote Fagin, I am reviewing the situation.

To Tony Britton. Some of us would be quite happy without a bank account, I know I would. We are forced these days to have our salaries paid into accounts and the government pays any benefits into accounts now. What is wrong with cash, at least then you know where you are. Debit cars are no better, supposed to be like cash but sometimes it takes a week for the money to leave the account. I do not like banks and I for one could happily live without them.

ClothKap: i'm with a major bank and transferred cash to another major bank and it went within 24 hours!

I agree with Tony Brittens comment in one respect only, yeah go back to the 60s/70s and pay workforces in cash again and see how many of us cancel our bank accounts. Today we cannot live without bank accounts its all geared up so that we have to use our bank accounts for everything well give us our paypacket back and then watch the well shod complain because banks would not accept the loss of all the bank charges and would then charge the well shod for the pleasure of being a good customer. Just as a point of interest I am not a bank customer who has paid charges regularly perhaps twice in the last 5 years and certainly not in the last two years so I am not a disgruntled banker who has paid lots of charges I havent I just dont like the disgraceful level of bank charges levied mainly for a header and footer on a standard letter churned out automatically from a computer and posted at a cost to the bank of in my opinion £1.00 max and charging £20-£40 give me my paypacket back and lets see how long the well shod keep their bank accounts
Dayvem

This 'new' service provided by the banks will cost us dearly in increases in overall charges. Someone has to 'pay for the shareholders bubbly'!.

Following on from astromax 271166 - recently, one of Alliance & Leicester's 'telephone advisers' advised me that transfer from my PlusSave to my current account would take place 'just after midnight', and would be instantaneous. Accordingly, I set up a transfer, and a further transfer of the same money out of my current account for the same day - 'that won't debit until the end of that day's trading'. Result - a patronising letter, a £25 charge, and a promise to call back with the results of a charge review within 48 hours - now nearly a week ago, and still with no call-back. For self-serving negligence, smug self-satisfaction, and a regard for customers' bank balances as their own property to be dipped into whenever they choose, Alliance and Leicester certainly come top of my Bad Banks League Table.

Slightly off-topic, so please forgive me. Like Bettybanker, I am currently employed by a leading financial services provider, although a mutual, which is, 'proud to be different'. Since I first entered the financial world in the late 1970's, it has changed radically. Back then it was all about excellent customer service which, it was widely acknowledged, would automatically bring the required sales results. Increased competition has caused customer service to suffer at the expense of sales and profits; witness the foreign call centres as prime evidence. Fortunately, this horrendous misjudgement has now come nearly full-circle and most call centres have returned to the UK. However, what the public know as Enquiries Desks and Receptions in the financial world are, in reality, Sales Desks; Customer Service Managers are becoming Business Development Managers and ever-present sales targets rule everyday life. Staff Training is now Sales Training and pay awards are granted on achievement of sales targets. Staff must juggle their natural desire to help and serve their customers with the need to achieve targets to retain their jobs and to ensure keeping their lowly salaries at least at the same level as the previous year! So, when you read about the huge salaries earnt by the Directors and Chief Executives of the financial world, don't judge us all; those of us at the 'coal face' are not so lucky and when we tell you about new products or services - we ARE trying to help you but we also need to live! Plc or mutual, it is a very competitive world and survival seems to depend on profitability - sad but true!

Re foxyloxy100 - RBS didn't lose a customer, they managed to rid themselves of a liability.

Going overdrawn without an arranged facility - what did you expect? On behalf of RBS and others, they expect YOU to bank with THEM, not the other way around!

TonyBritten's comments at 7:02 did make me giggle. What does 'high at heel' and 'If you haven't got the dosh use your back pocket' actually mean? Plus, Tony, your last sentence - I think you meant 'there', not 'their'.

But less of my sarcasm and back to the topic and his comments. I worked in banking through the 1980s and our branch did indeed target the unbanked, often from the payroll of our business clients. A deposit account we ran for free, but current accounts attracted charges for each transaction - free banking came in a couple of years after I started. Charges reflected the cost to us for processing a transaction, so a DD was less than a cheque, say. And every transaction reaching us overnight went into the branch manager's office for approval. What I'm trying to point out here is that we charged, but for a service. Staff actually looked at everything going through an account to ensure it was legitimate and authorised by the account holder, not just a computer, so charges paid for our time. When a letter was sent to a customer, it involved the manager dictating to a shorthand secretary and it then being typed by hand, a stamp licked and affixed and a walk to the postbox - more time. Computer-generated letters don't really take that amount of labour, so I really don't see how they can be charged at the same rate, when charges are supposed to reflect the cost to the bank for undertaking the task.

Current accounts were actually seen as loss leaders, we expected to make our money from personal loans, insurance etc, which our customers would buy from us because we were their bank - that's why free banking whilst in credit came in, we didn't see the costs of running such accounts as onerous.

Now, the cash society is long gone, employers will not pay in cash (incidentally, this was what the bank's wanted, all that cash handling is really labour-intensive and expensive, banks pushed employers to pay through BACS instead), so no-one can really be unbanked any more. If the banks did not want these people to overdraw, they should not have allowed it - it's very easy you know, all transactions go through a computer, if a transaction were to take an account overdrawn it's the easiest thing in the world for it to reject the transaction. But the banks do allow it, because they want to stiff the customers for charges (the service ethos I worked under has also long gone).

So, Tony, your diatribe against those who, in your opinion should not be permitted bank accounts - you are wrong and you are right too, if only in one respect. You are wrong about people expecting to run up an overdraft - I have never asked my bank for an overdraft, but I have the facility because it comes as standard. It is the banks who subtly suggest that it is normal to have an overdraft. As to being right, I do agree that 'The Bank's (sic!) MUST go back to the former days on their charging methods because it is the only fair way'. For me, those methods involved charging for services rendered, at a rate commesurate with the cost of providing that service. A computer is a blunt tool, and no match for branch staff who know the ebb and flow of your account and can spot a fraudulent transaction at thirty paces. Even as the office junior making up the statements in the basement I knew the financial patterns of 2,000 customers, and since cheques were still in common usage then I knew their handwriting too (not just their signatures). Nowadays cheques are unseen by staff let alone checked. Even taking into account the high wages of good IT staff and a nice shiny computer centre and network, charges are no longer in line with costs. The profit is excessive.

A league table could be an excellent tool to help banks mend their ways, and return to serving their customers. It should be remembered that banks made hefty profits back then too, there is no excuse for their current business practices.

My bank is I F. Generally, they are pretty good but I think the league table is a good idea (analagous to the bradband satisfaction tables).

It would inform anyone wanting to switch and should include the building societies.

I'm with Nat west and First Direct and have no complaints but would still like to see a bad banks list. I have a sneaky feeling that most complaints would be aimed at building societies, they seem to have poor customer care/service

I think that a league tables for banks would be a good idea, as long as they show levels of satisfaction for different types of service.

I switched to Halifax a couple of years ago and am very happy. There again, it enjoys using my healthy bank balance, gives me a good rate of interest and doesn't charge me anything. Only two problems, first, when I switched most of my direct debits were not set up properly - not really its fault, it wrote to the companies asking for them to change their direct debit details and they ignored the letters! They didn't even contact me to ask me to confirm that I wanted the details to change. And some of the DDs were with banks...

Secondly, Halifax made me wait in a branch, on the phone, for half an hour to give me an uncompetitive rate for a loan that should have taken 5 mins! So much for personal banking. Even through the bank knows how much I earn and save each month it could not give me a figure quickly.

I think this is want most people want: banks to serve them as people and get things right, and most people wouldn't mind paying. Yes there are some people who cannot manage their finances, drain their accounts and then complain about unfair charges, despite unfairly using the banking system! Obviously, complaints from these people will skew the results of league tables. (Of course, the banks like these kind of people because they can make serious money from them!) Nevertheless, I hope that most people are decent and use their banks reasonably, and therefore should expect to be treated well when things go wrong, instead of having to make endless calls to faceless call centres that are powerless to solve the problems, because they are all caused - and fixed - by computers!

I sympathise with all the problems above. Not all banks are the same though, and some braches of a particular Bank can be good and others rubbish. I worked for Lloyds Bank for 35 years,it used to be a good honest undertaking run by people who had to pass the IOB Banking Diploma to qualify. Now it's run by people who are qualified only in sales techniques, or so called, and the philosophy seems to be to get as much money out of every cutomer at any cost. The Customer service is pretty poor these days too. I've been trying to get a small issue resolved since February and whilst I get a lot of scripted apologies by call center staff who don't know a Charity shop from a bank , I don't get as resolution, only frustration. I too find the Nationwide fairly good, I say fairly as one local Branch is excellent whilst in another I encounterrd a real horror of a cashier who had an attitude and let the whole side down.
The nationwide customer service has also suffered recently as they were not really equipped to handle the amalgamation with Portman. hence the Ques onto the street in most towns where there were once both represented.

My apologies for another download! After 35 years at Lloyds Jackdorset is surely absolutely right about banking: "Now it's run by people who are qualified only in sales techniques, or so called, and the philosophy seems to be to get as much money out of every cutomer at any cost."
Alas, banks are not alone in this absurd approach. Most bank employees that the wretched customer sees are kids who cannot possibly have any idea what banking really is, yet. (Poor things: they're sort of cardboard cutouts mouthing some irrelevant sales patter or downloading clerical mumbo jumbo that no normal person can understand.) And there's never any sign of anyone who does know which way round a real bank goes. What are they doing all day that's so much more important than resolving Jackdorset's "small issue" that's been bugging the poor chap for four months. And he's a retired banker -- a real one by the look of his post -- so what chance do the rest of us have? Crazy, simply crazy.

Some praise clearly due to the Halifax. We have online savings accounts with them, and can move money from the savings accounts to the current account, and vice versa, in a matter of seconds. Transfers to other peoples' accounts with with the Halifax are also very speedy. It's only the wish to have the funds spread about a bit as a matter of security, which stops me from keeping the whole lot there.

Personal customer service in the two branches of Nationwide that I use is excellent, but the same cannot be said of their internet banking support where they seem incapable of reading or writing in clear English. Also they debit before crediting which can be a real pig. Internal transfers are instant, externals take a couple of days.

I wish Lloyds had sent me flowers when they messed up a loan transfer which then took months to sort!

Yes these things are measurable - fixing things and apologising are infinitely preferable to being treated like an idiot or an enemy.