That message has been thrown around ever since the bad days following Hurricane Ivan when the banks opened for a short time and allowed their customers little of their savings that belonged to them and not the banks.

Do you remember the long queues in the hot sun and the door being slammed in your face on the stroke of 1pm?

I still do.

And then the reckless behaviour of the world wide banking industry that caused the big collapse only a few years ago. Huge fines were levied against the banks by the supposed overseers who failed to see, with not one high profile prosecution, no 25-year jail sentences, no fines that were incredibly burdensome, and no Bernie Madoff style perp walks. Lehman was bought by Barclay’s, Merrill Lynch lives on at Bank of America just as Wachovia was absorbed by Wells Fargo! (Source: Gallup).

The perception that banks only desire the big business with all the trappings, and the high paid executives who are out to get profits at whatever the cost will continue to linger and nothing I see going on here in Cayman today has changed my opinion.

Just take the problems going on with the cash transfer business companies. The rug was pulled by most of the banks without even a 24 hour notice this was going to happen.

They do not care about their ordinary customers.

Earl Jarrett, who is the general manager of Jamaica National Building Society (JNBS) and the chair of JNMS Cayman, said only this week banks pulled services from money remittances companies because they believe those customers are risky!

Risky? None of these ordinary customers caused the giant crash. Greed is what caused that by the very people the banks still woo.

I remember in the 70’s/80’s when all the UK street banks went on a campaign to know their customers. Us. The ordinary people. One bank even had a “friendly” bank manager hiding in your bedroom closet who would come out and help you immediately with the slightest financial problem you had.

Any financial problem you might have here with corporation banks like CIBC, Nova Scotia, RBC, are not dealt here by any friendly bank manger who knows you. It is done by a desk clerk who refers it to someone above who refers it to some one else in another country.

We are just a number on a piece of paper and looked at with suspicion and not an asset.

I leave you with this piece from Gallup:

“To the public, it all seems very business-as-usual for the banks. But the average American still knows the neighbor who lost their job and is financially unstable after a long period of unemployment, still drives past foreclosed or unfinished homes, still has to keep up payments on their HomeBanc originated mortgage, still worries about the value of their own home because it is just now this close to no longer being underwater. The average American still talks to their brother who lost his job and was lucky enough to find a new one quickly — but is making 30% less money than he used to, so his wife took a part-time retail job to help make up the difference. The consequences are real to us, we feel we have more than paid the price, but it’s very hard for the general public to figure out how bankers have paid their dues.

“I’m sure there are those who would be wholly satisfied by some form of punishment for the purpose of pure vengeance, but I think the deeper underlying issue is that, as a society, we never got closure from this crisis the way we have in the past. Bernie Ebbers brought down a Fortune 500 company and will spend 25 years in jail for his hard work on that front, along with his brethren from Enron and Tyco. Anderson was shut down by the government (even if the Supreme Court later reversed the decision — who remembers that?). If you recall the news cycle in the early aughts, we couldn’t get enough of these stories, then they came to their natural conclusion and we moved on. We can’t have confidence in something we can’t trust, and we can’t trust something that appears to take no responsibility for its actions. Bank stories aren’t coming out as fast and furiously as they were in 2008 and 2009, but every time a new story does come out, we’re reminded that we never had any closure, and it feels like the crisis is still going on. The larger issue still feels systemic rather than bank-specific, and it still feels like unfinished business.

“Until the banking industry decides that it can — or even wants to — fix its public perception through better PR, improved government relations, or ideally both, individual banks will have to carry the weight. The only way for these banks to improve their status is to keep doing what works — improving perceptions one customer, one financial life saving moment, one personal financial dream at a time.”

Do you feel Cayman banks don’t care about their retail customers? I would love to hear from you.