If I may plead for your kindest indulgence, but the increase by a leading commercial bank to $1.50 per debit transaction is most unwelcome and really hard hearted, if not just plain banking banditry. Mind you, these same institutions, don’t pay a penny or they pay just a penny on your deposit of thousands, which they lend at astronomical rates.
As you are, for the last decade, the trend has been cashless and this gave rise to points of sale and linx machines. People felt safer, even though thieves held a gun to your head and forced you to withdraw cash.. So it was only so safe.
When someone steals your “tap” card, they can get a good many $300 transactions as your daily limit will allow, so safety is only so safe. They abandoned e-wallets and spot cash to buy a bag of kurma and a paw paw.
But still, people did in fact prefer the debit card as opposed to cash, i.e until banks started imposing a point of sale charge. So, for the discerning person, he will now revert to cash, because it is just plain banditry, every time I use the debit card, the bank charges a $1.50. People already pay for cheques they use, a service charge just to maintain an account and penalties when the balance dips below a threshold.
These nuisance fees and charges will certainly dampen payment mechanisms. It is shamefull, that banking executives sit there in a specific ivory tower ( the twins) and the best they can do is say “shop around”.
When banks became overbearing in Barbados, Prime Minister Mottley put them in their place, back in their cage. In Trinidad and Tobago, they have the government , swinging from trees, in a chokehold for a few dollars.
I must chide the said bank and caution others who like to play follow the leader. It is really a hard lash to the defenceless consumers, but you will see how things will decline, in the same way, the Government feels it can tax and fine the nation, they will lose in the long run.
People will turnaway from banks and do like a Senator who had $10,000 stolen from his car, another short term Prime Minister who paid a phenomenal ransom for his relative in the dead of night under police watch and yet another who deposited a similar phenomenal amount and up to today, she can’t give a good explanation for it. Even they shunned the point of sale transaction, paying instead in cash (tsk..tsk..smh).
Did I hear someone say “buyers remorse?”
Linda Capildeo
St James
