What happened to my bank?

I went to my bank a few days ago. As I rounded up the transaction and I am about to sign the print out for approval, I noticed, besides the usual name of my bank, a strange name boldly printed across the sheet of paper to give me the impression that something has changed in the bank. I took a moment to ask the teller what this was all about.

He said, “Oh, that is the name of our new partners”.

I asked him how come customers are not informed about new partnerships just the same way they encouraged me tp open an account with them.

He just smiled off my question and the conversation was over.

This brings to light feedback mechanisms in our institutions. As I walked away from the bank that day, I wondered who is playing who. My bank apparently took in a new partner from neighboring Nigeria recently. I wondered what else they were doing without informing the customers. Come to think of it, since I opened an account with them, I have never received a bank statement through my work postal address; in fact, I have never received anything from them through my mailbox.

In my country CMR, I also notice that customers’ savings accounts are debited monthly. In my experience the amounts range from CFA500 to CFA1000. And it is interesting to note that the customer is not informed about these deductions, and, so many customers are not even aware of it. In other countries where I have lived, a customer is charged only on a current account, but here in CMR, current accounts and savings accounts are given almost the same treatment, however the amounts deducted vary. Hope this comes to an end soon. A customer should get paid for saving money with a bank, not the customer paying to save money in a bank. However not all banks in CMR practice this.