The ANZ branch on the corner of George and King in the Sydney CBD is a grand, olde worlde affair. Cavernous ceilings, wood panels, and lots of columns. I love this type of classical architecture, even if it can be a little formal.
A couple of months ago, set against the swarming crowds just beyond the doors on George Street, it seemed I wasn't the only one taken in by my surroundings. Pretty much everyone there explored the space with a quiet chorus of eager eyes as they patiently waited their turn.
Eventually, my turn came and I made my way to the counter – feeling a little like an extra in Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid. (Okay, so I have a fairly wild imagination.)
I handed over my deposit, the teller followed the usual process, and he then handed me my receipt.
But, once he'd done so, events took a strange turn.
The teller took a furtive look left, then right, and then leaned carefully across the counter towards me.
I wondered what this was all about and my brain instinctively offered up the following options:
1. He was about to offer me illegal drugs.
2. He was going to ask me if I knew of any good job openings.
3. He wanted to let me know that Butch and Sundance were standing right behind me, their guns loaded.
(Yes, I know, a very wild imagination, but believe me, this is exactly how it happened from my point of view.)
As it turned out, I was wrong on all counts.
The ANZ teller leaned carefully across the counter, looked me in the eye and asked if I had considered an ANZ credit card. With 55 days interest-free. In fact, there was even a special offer that waived the joining fee. And finally, he offered a second card at no extra price.
I took the receipt for my deposit and headed straight for the huge doors and into the anonymity of the lunchtime crowds, still swarming in the midday sun.
What had been a very pleasant, swift and efficient exchange up until that point had taken what I considered to be an ugly turn. I had gone to the bank to deposit my money as quickly and simply as possible. And I had all but done that when the teller slipped into what had to be one of the clumsiest and most ill-timed attempts to cross-sell me that I have ever encountered.
In the same way that when I go to the supermarket checkout, I want to pay for my goods not buy some more, so when I go to the teller window in a bank to deposit my money, I want to reduce my debt not add to it.
And over the past few weeks since then, it's been happening more and more as banks mobilise their army of window watchers to sell anything and everything to whomever walks in the doors. What really destroys the whole experience – above and beyond the sheer nuisance value – is the fact that they don't appear to have had any training. At ANZ, the teller's demeanour was hardly that of a slick salesman, and more recently at NAB, they tried to offer me a savings account for any cash sitting in the account that offsets my mortgage, but at a lower interest rate and one that would in fact have put me in a worse financial position. And, again at NAB when I was there earlier this week, the teller skipped any sort of polite introduction and launch straight into a spontaneous list of products. Credit card? Home insurance? Car insurance? Car loan? And so on. It was as though he was trying to guess my star sign.
I know that banks have never been anyone's favourite brand. But it's not that I don't like them, I just wish they would leave me alone.
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