Dear Editor,
During the past 15 months, we have conducted a careful and thorough survey of the long delays and time consumption at Guyana’s leading banks: Republic Bank, Citizens Bank, The Bank of Nova Scotia, Guyana Bank of Trade and Industry (GBTI), and Demerara Bank to determine the length of time spent by their customers in each bank. As most of us know, every bank, at some point and time during the day, especially at peak hours, will have people waiting very long in lines to complete routine transactions such as deposits, withdrawals, account enquiries, customer services, and special assistance, among others.
It is with great disappointment that our survey found that the two banks with the most ridiculous and excessively long lines in every service area and at every branch throughout the country are Republic Bank and Citizens Bank. On multiple occasions, we have observed that customers must wait in line for approximately four hours or longer on any given day, and an average of another 40 minutes is spent at the teller or with customer service personnel.
Regrettably, this means that each customer spends an average of between four and a half to five hours per day at these two banks. Even though there are special sections with seating available for the elderly, parents with small children, pregnant mothers, and people with disabilities, the delay remains about the same. There are also long lines at each of the ATM outlets throughout the country.
While we understand that the banks must follow security, compliance, and standard operating procedures, the current waiting times are unreasonable and disheartening for customers who have become acclimatised to the situation. In fact, they have become so accustomed to the unusually and exceptionally long lines and lengthy delays that they do not complain because they have concluded that nothing would change.
In their opinion, banking delays at almost every bank are common throughout the country. During the last 15 months, our interviews with more than 2648 bank customers have revealed that the current waiting time of roughly five hours has affected their mental health, disrupted their daily chores, and eroded customer trust; but most of all, it has severely impacted productivity in the country.
In the survey, we found that eight out of every 10 customers are full-time employees, and this has resulted in the country losing more than 1.3 million production hours every week, or the equivalent of 5.2 million per month, or 62.4 million per year. Losing over 60 million production hours per year is unacceptable and makes it highly impossible for Guyana to develop. We are living in a digitised world, but where is the digitisation that the Government talks about? The time has come for the banks to digitise and modernise the banking system to reduce such a huge loss in production.
Tellers and customer service personnel continue to use the old-fashioned system of writing information obtained from computers on three or four banking and deposit slips to be signed by them and the customers, which is completely backward and a waste of time. If the information exists in the computer, then why rewrite it on the slips? This nonsensical act proves that banks do not rely on computers, suggesting backwardness and redundancy by the banks in the 21st century. Simply put, it is a waste of consumers’ time and a loss of unnecessary production, which has never been the focus of the banking executives. Their focus is not on customers suffering but on huge profit margins for the parent companies overseas.
Efficient and modern digitised services are a core expectation in banking, and we believe that the delays are the result of poor staffing, inept processes, mediocre training, inadequate qualifications, incompetent management, and an ineffective and hopeless system riddled with problems that need urgent attention.
We have witnessed that out of the dozen or more teller windows available, only two or three are used most of the time to attend to more than three hundred customers daily. The delay time is further increased when the tellers and customer service personnel constantly leave their windows or desks to seek advice from supervisors when serving a customer. We have seen more personnel walking around the office in the banks than those serving the customers.
Both Republic and Citizens banks, along with all the other banks, are respected financial institutions, but most senior management are not only insensitive to the needs of the people, but they are also disrespectful to them.
Addressing these unwanted, needless, and annoying delays at the banks will help to restore customer confidence and credence and uphold the standard of service Guyanese citizens deserve from the banking establishments. All senior banking officials should heed this profound and superlative advice.