By Voice Reporter
ONE local bank says it definitely won’t join others in charging customers exorbitant fees for cashing or refusing to cash cheques for non-account holders.
Customers have for some time been complaining about these practices, which only seemed to apply at some banks.
The matter was brought to public attention earlier this week when Opposition Leader the Honourable Philip J. Pierre wrote to the President of the local Bankers Association seeking clarification and calling for the practice to be stopped, unless justified.
Pierre told the Bankers’ Association President that in his view, those banks that refused to cash their own clients’ cheques were also infringing on the right of customers by denying them access to monies they have earned.
The VOICE has made several efforts to solicit a response to the Leader of the Opposition’s publicized letter to the Bankers Association’s President but to date, these efforts remain unsuccessful. Commercial banks have also largely maintained a deafening silence about the fact that the issue is now in the public domain. However, the island’s oldest indigenous bank is letting its position be known that it will not engage and participate in any approach that puts a reputable aspect of traditional banking into disrepute.
The 1st National Bank Saint Lucia says its shareholders and customers have elected to use cheque payments in their course of business — and it intends to honour all legitimate cheque payment transactions.
Managing Director Johnathan Johannes says “the said actions” by some banks are “unfortunate” and “damaging to the reputation of the use of a cheque as a reliable method of payment within our jurisdiction”
Johannes told The VOICE, “What this means is that someone paying a gardener by cheque will most likely have to pay him the extra $10 being charged to cash it at the bank, if he does not have an account with the said Bank; or depending on the bank the cheque is drawn on the Gardener may not be able to cash that cheque at all.”
According to the Managing Director “People need to cash their cheques to survive. Whether it is a gardener, a vendor or a small trader, it’s a disservice to any bank to say that its’ very own cheque when presented is not accepted or in some cases exorbitant fees are applied negatively impacting the non-account holder as well as the segment of the population that is unbanked”.
The 1st National Bank Managing Director said it was somewhat contradictory that this was happening just as Eastern Caribbean commercial banks recently approved mechanisms to establish an automated clearing houses to facilitate faster and wider acceptance of cheques as a payment method.
“The region is going one way and we are going the other way,” he noted.
Lest he be misunderstood, the Managing Director explained, “I am all for moving to alternative payment methods, but until we have a system that renders cheques obsolete, how can we do away with them?”
“At 1st National,” the Bank’s Managing Director said, “we remain loyal to our chequing account holders and all our clients and customers can rest assured that we will cash any and all of our cheques subject to the instrument being completed correctly and the account on which it is drawn has sufficient funds to cover the face value of the cheque, whether the cheque presenter has an account with us or not.”
“The only way we will not cash a cheque is if it is spoilt – post-dated, stale-dated or if there’s insufficient funds in the account to make that payment,” he assured.
“In my previous life as a retailer,” he recalled, “I always knew and understood the power of the consumer — and that if the store I am accustomed to doing my shopping just suddenly raises the prices on me, I will switch to another.
“Bank customers are the same — and if you do the same to them they will respond by speaking with the only powerful voice they have: their economic might.”
He went on to encourage customers who felt disenfranchised to do the necessary research into bank services and charges and make informed choices that meet their needs and fits their budgets.
It is because facilities for clearing cheques were recently introduced that the hindrance charge was introduced. Payees get same day credit for their cheques. Why not open an account and have your wages deposited to your account? We need to continue to move towards a cashless society. BTW, are these employers paying NIC for those casual workers? That to my mind is more important than fighting a hindrance charge.
Employers need to move with the times and pay salaries/wages into bank accounts. That can be done electronically.