By Fred Chukwuelobe
It is another end of the month, and banks’ alerts are hitting our phones. I called it “sundary alerts,” and they come in small figures. Because they’re small, many people don’t bother to check or complain.
In the 80s, 90s, and early to late 20s, bank marketers were all over bank customers, soliciting funds. Many of our ladies, especially, were forced to do things they ordinarily would not do just to get some randy men to give them deposits. The banking hall was populated with beautiful and young ladies, and in some instances, married women who were sent out daily in hot pursuit of money. Promotions and sackings were done depending on how much you brought in. Accounts officers worshipped customers with BIG financial war chests.
Once they see you’re dressed in some neat clothes, they accost you, throwing their business cards, dropping accounts opening forms, collecting your cell phone numbers, and following up. To throw them off our trails, many opened accounts they knew they won’t run. I have N10,000 in five banks. I opened the accounts just to save myself from constant bombardments from these ladies.
Not anymore.
Banks no longer send marketers out in search of cash. Accounts’ officer no longer treat their account holders with the respect with which they did when marketing reigned supreme, and their jobs depended on how much account they brought in. These days, you may call your account officer for days before he or she answers you.
I said it during Godwin Emefiele reign of impunity at the CBN when he ‘repainted’ old notes and called it naira redesign. No account officer called me to give me the new notes. Except for two of my friends: Chiamaka and another, I had to buy the repainted notes from the now powerful POINT OF SALE (POS) operators. Imagine if it were in those ‘marketing days’.
So, what happened? Why has aggressive marketing stopped? Where are the marketers?
Long story short.
The banks don’t need to market customers anymore. All they do is programme their computers to collect customers’ money daily. That’s why you see “card maintenance”, “account maintenance”, “cheque issuing”, “ATM charges”, “enquiry charges”, “bank visit charges”, “looking through the windows of bank charges”, “driving in front of the bank charges”, “deposits and withdrawal charges”, “being a customer charges”, etc.
Because these charges range from N2,500 to N10, customers do not bother. The phone alerts beep, the customer looks, and he curses his bank. “Ndi oshi” (thieves), and he moves on. But multiple these charges with the number of customers these Banks have, and watch the humongous figures they post quarterly. That is why they don’t need marketers again. Their computers now do the marketing and the collection.
Some people say the bank reforms eliminated aggressive marketing. Others give different reasons for that. To me, the banks are now ‘stealing’ from their customers, and knowing us, they know we can only curse and move on.
One day, somebody may refuse to move on and go to court to stop all those sundry deductions. It happened in First Bank when somebody sought to know why his account debited wrongly was not reversed. As it turned out, one bank staff using the wife’s account had made a kill to the tune of over N40b.
Imagine!
Until that day, the alerts will keep coming and our money will keep leaving our accounts.
NB: Called from Chukwuelobe’s Facebook page.
