Your Bank Hates You (by Scott Adams)

by | Jun 28, 2009 | banksters, Podcast

I’ve been talking about why we hate banks. It might be because they hate us!

Some insight into the way banks work from Dilbert creator Scott Adams (who says he was working at a bank when Dilbert was born):

Banks and credit card companies make a lot of money from late fees. They have a naked interest in keeping their service as inconvenient as possible.

Makes sense, right? Except that it’s another example of good profits vs bad profits (as Jen Storey explained on my last banking podcast). This rational might increase bank profits in the short term, but in the long term it pisses us off. That doesn’t matter too much to the existing bank executives, as their bonuses are based on THIS year’s profits and not the long term future of the bank. They are incented to have a short term outlook. The bank execs also know that we don’t have much choice. Except that we DO. That’s why I set up an account with a credit union last week (CUA). I’ll be shutting down my bank accounts over the next month and moving everything over to CUA – a credit union is owned by its MEMBERS and not SHARE HOLDERS, so it has an incentive to provide good service, not to maximize profits at the expense of service.

Read the rest of Scott’s blog post here.