BSP explains long queues

By MALUM NALU
BANK South Pacific group chief executive Ian Clyne says the endless queues outside BSP branches around the country need not be if only more people take care of their Kundu cards and  use modern electronic banking.
Clyne also told The National yesterday that BSP was playing a de facto school role by collecting school fees, something that it was not supposed to do, resulting in long queues of people in BSP branches around the country.
He said in the case of bank cards being “eaten” by automatic teller machines (ATMs), through wrong pin number input, about 16,000 people lined up at BSP branches every month just to get a replacement or conduct transactions manually.
Manual transactions because of “eaten” cards number up to 80,000 a month.
“People give their Kundu cards to wantoks, they use the cards to pay their lenders, these people go to the ATMs and sometimes they forget the number,” Clyne said.
“After three goes, the machine eats the card. And every month, we have 16,000 people who come and need a replacement card, because the machine has taken it.
“Largely, it’s the customer’s fault, not the bank’s.
“Someone has given the card to someone else, who’s forgotten the code, and the bank is just protecting.
“The bank advises not to lend your card or PIN to a third party.”
Clyne said the bank was already taking steps to address this problem.
“We have come up with a new initiative, where instead of the machine “eating” the card on the third go, the card will be returned and the account will be frozen for 24 hours
“That alone will take 80,000 transactions out of the branches.
“People sometimes come in several times to see if the cards are ready, and also, the bank has to go back and have the cards made.
“Just a small initiative like that will save our customers a lot of frustration, and the bank a lot of frustration as well.”
Electronic banking was also something the bank was emphasising.
“There are solutions with telephones, ATMs, EFTPOS, that 40% of the customers do not need to be in the branch,” Clyne said.
“These channels are actually cheaper for the customer, so we need to teach the customers to do better banking.”
Clyne said long queues were also evident at BSP branches when schools started classes every year as the bank took on the task of schools.
He said about 6,900 schools had accounts with BSP and that added to a mammoth task for tellers and long queues.
“BSP is doing a lot of the information gathering, accounting and reconciliation on behalf of schools and doesn’t charge for that,” Clyne said.