KEY POINTS:
An Auckland man thought it was an April Fool's joke when an ASB bank teller tried to charge him $5 to split a $20 note. An ASB spokesperson said the experience was "very strange" and the bank would make inquiries.
What do you think?
Send us your views
>> Read the story
Here is the latest selection of your views:
Dominic
As a former employee of the ASB, I have experienced constant scenarios like this and it makes me cringe standing behind other customers who are getting incorrect information given to them all of the time. I have found the contact centre to be correct more often and a great asset to the bank. One thing to be aware of though is that the branch tellers are given minimal discretion in order to limit loss and maximise profits such as not being able to waive or refund fees.
Dan S
The one and most important thing that is being forgotten by the supporters of the bank fee is that without Joe citizen you have no bank and no bank jobs. To the so called teller that finds it disrupting to help the public, well you should get a job that does not require you so help the people that make your job happen.
Jesse
Ok, I do not understand the comment of Bella where she agrees to with the bank to charge an absurd fee to change a small amount of money. Let me put it to you this way, what if you walked into a diary to buy a loaf of bread and instead of paying every day prices you ended up walking out scratching your head at the price you were charged for the transaction. Now I am all for certain fees but for a customer whether he or she be of that bank or not to be charged such an amount to change money is silly, its bad customer service and I for one dont see the logic in it. We get charged enough for day to day transactions, interest and every other transaction that a can bank can think of. Good way to loose customers corporate banks.
Kathleen
I am an ASB customer. I am incredulous at The ASB banks policy of charging $3.00 for deposits over every $1000, inside a 24 hour period. Is this normal practice for all banks or is it only the ASB whom charges their customers for depositing money?
Jason
Lets put all the argument aside, do any of us think a change machine will work out the problem? I mean, if the banks like, they can ask their customers to swipe the card before using such kind of device. On the other hand, we do have such needs of changing from a bigger note to a smaller one, and sometimes even coins. I used to see Skycity Casino have several of these machines, not sure if banks can have them set up as well?
Raymond
I got into the same situation with BNZ not so long ago in Birkenhead. These corporates are all same. They will milk as much money out of you and then confuse the hell out of you with some marketing hype - oh sounds like Telecom.
Bella
I think its fair enough. I used to be a bank teller and we were always busy even if there were no customers in the bank - with all sorts of jobs pertaining to our regular customers. The point of charging a fee is that it takes time out of the regular routines of what we neded to do during the day and if we didnt charge it people that were not our customers would be in all day wanting to change notes. I do agree though that there needs to be a standard fee up to changing $100.00 and then above $100.00 another fee and so in. But I fully agree with charging the fees.
Nathan
As a bank teller myself, I think there are two sides to every story.
Bank staff encounter customers who come in requesting change on a very regular basis. If the customer asked for change politely, I would be more than happy to do so, providing it is a small amount. On the other hand if a non-customer came in to my branch without saying please or thank you, I would definitely let him know that there is a fee involved and that he should go to his own bank. As for Mr Browns situation, I absolutely do not sympathise with him. He was being sarcastic when he said "is this an April's Fools Joke?" and to make matters worse, he even demanded that the bank teller give him the change he requested. If he did not bank at the ASB, he should not go there in the first place he should go to his own bank. I deal with people like Mr Brown everyday and honestly he is the kind of customer that I can do without.
Erin Marshall
Ridiculous to charge fees for changing money. Yes, banks are businesses, and all businessess need to make money to survive, but don't the banks do that through exorbitant fees!!! They will lose customers, and without customers they won't have a business.
Craig Percasky
What a load of ol cobblers, How much effort does it take to change a bit of money?,Its like the OSH rules and regulations. Theres that many different rules that they have side rules for rules,things seem to be snowballing, Its getting to the stage were you cant fart without fear of there being some sought of charge to keep you in check .
Phil Sinclair
The $5 levy for changing a $20 bill is pretty much par for the course for all the foreign owned trading banks currently operating in NZ. I must admit it wouldnt even occur to me to ask one to change money for me. I would prefer to go to an outlet with a bit more community spirit. Even the local drug pushers ie booze outlets and tobacconists are usually more generous in spirit than any of the banks, so I would go there. Most of us have a plethora of similar tales of bankers' greed, a sin which has been developed into a fine art since the de-regulation and privatisation of the late 20th century. There was a time when banks were happy to provide these small services to the public gratis. That was back before they were allowed to develop a monopoly on currency. When paper and coins were still a viable and much used method of completing transactions, banks lacked the control over the money routes that they have now. It is time for the reserve bank to step in and provide an alternative method of electronic currency management in the same way that they broke the banks monopoly on physical currency 150 odd years ago. The first money minted in NZ was by the trading banks who enjoyed the same hammerlock on the flow of funds then as they do now. The government stepped in and provided competition which was sufficient to keep them free of the worst excesses for more than 100 years. As someone old enough to remember when we were cajoled into agreeing to be paid by electronic deposit rather than the cash in the hand we had always been paid, I also remember solemn undertakings from the banks that this method of payment would never cost us. Yeah right! One of the bank johnnies said "We are saving so much money by paying this way we would be mad to charge you for it wouldnt we?" They did save a mob; no more armoured cars doing payroll deliveries, no more hold-ups of payrolls, any reasonable institution would have been happy with that result - not the banks though. Once everyone was paid through a bank account -some people had to go out and open an account because up until that point the had had no need for the thing- cash payments were abolished and very shortly afterwards bank charges on all small retail transactions were introduced. That was the path which led us to being charged $5 to change $20. That path will continue until the reserve bank lives up to its charter and provides a national electronic currency, making using banks a choice.
Alison
I think this is an over-reaction to a small error in judgement by the bank teller. As explained by the ASB spokesperson in the article, the charge is a deterrent to businesses who do not bank with ASB, yet expect the bank to provide them with their floats, thereby potentially denying the bank's own customers. Perhaps the teller could have exercised a greater degree of discretion, but it's hardly worth reporting this to a major newspaper. A bank is after all is said and done a business, not a public service.
Celia
Something else to watch out for with ASB and their Streamline account is when other people deposit money over the counter into your account. A mix-up led to ANZ needing to organise a refund of $5.50. Unfortunately ANZ decided to refund the money by writing a cheque, visiting the local ASB branch and depositing the cheque over the counter. Resulting in a manual transaction fee of $3 for a transaction worth $5.50! Banking at its finest. A call to customer service refunded the $3 in this particular instance (my first offence), however I was advised that this was a legitimate fee. The customer service rep was unable to confirm though whether it is policy to advise people making over the counter transactions to third party accounts that manual transaction fees may be charged, and to then recommend other transaction methods... now that would be customer service.
Anthony Cornor
A couple of months back I needed to get my statements printed for transactions on an AP that I had. When I requested this at the Lynmall ASB teller, he told me it was $5 a page, and being a years worth, could have been a severe amount of money. I then went in the next weekend to double check, managed to get a different teller and his answer was simple: Yeah sure, its free, thats why we charge transaction fees.
Ian Wilson
In this day and age I find it very difficult to see how the major banks here in NZ can charge fees for the general day to day operation of your bank account, let alone be charge $5 for wanting to change a $20 note into smaller currency. I come from Scotland and at the tail end of last century the banks stopped charging you for using eftpos and keeping your account open. We still have an account in Scotland and every month we get a statement sent to us and it shows absolutely no charges, what is does show is interest accrued each month. So come on NZ lets scrap the banking charges, after all are you not making enough money by investing our money and only giving use a poultry amount of interest, if any at all.
DjJase
Yep typical of the bigger banks. My advice to one and all is dump them and join Kiwibank, I am surprised on a weekly basis at their fabulous service - they put the others to shame, and hey if the public all take a stand and the banks start loosing customers maybe they will finally address some of the outrageous things they do and charge for!
John Lewis
This is not an isolated case. Late last year I went to a Westpac bank to get change for a twenty dollar note and was asked if I was a bank customer. When I replied "no" I was told that there would be a $5.00 fee.
Ganesh Kumar
I am not surprised by the story about ASB. ASB charged $2.00 to provide an account balance (when personally requested at the Pakuranga Branch) for a Charitable Organisation Savings account.
Rajat Aneja
Same thing happened to me on 20th Jan 2007, When I went to ASBs counter at Westfield, Henderson. I had to travel to India the same day because my Mother-in-Law died. I withdrew some money from Bank's ATM. All the money was in 20s notes. I wanted to exchange the notes for 100s. The lady over the counter told me the same thing that being non-ASB customer she will charge for that. It annoyed me a lot. But than I tried to do it with the Currency Exchange counter of the same bank, They did it without talking about any policy and without charging me even a single cent. I dont know what the policy is and who is following the policy??
