Secrets Of A Big Bank

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 106, 7 May 1938, Page 8 (Supplement)

Secrets Of A Big Bank

By A West End Cashier

EVERY year sees more and more and more women customers at the bank*. Every day •eee greater demands on the bank man's reserves of tact and patience. For women are still a nuisance as baiik customers. They will pereist in thinking that a cheque book is a passport to Eldorado. Despite the hand books issued and advice given, soine amusing incidents occur. A woman wrote saying she was leaving for an unknown destination. Would >«e ask our local branch to caeh her cheques ? „ In complete good faith another customer sent in a cheque drawn by hereelf on the bank in settlement of her (Overdraft! The authority which another woman possessed to draw cheques on her husband's account was interpreted in a "strange way. . Thinking that she had to sign just .** he did, ehe carefully copied his .signature. With such complete .'onfidence and care was this done that the •resulting forgery wae not discovered for

six months. And then only because she drew a cheque in front of the cou-iter clerk. He was naturally astounded to eee the signature of Col. appear on the cheque. The amused and astonished hueband was himself unable to pick out his own cheques with any degree of certainty. I am not suggesting that there are many such examples. If, however, the cheque book.? lost by women customers were placed in a heap, they would give work to all the forgers of the last half century. Letters from women present another problem. Sometimes they cover several sheets. One woman's lyrical description of the astronomical heights reached by our bank charges was full of classical quotations and extremely witty. It wae a pity our official reply had to be: "Your letter—the contents of which we note." It would be interesting to be free to anewer such letters, and the occasional abusive ones, in the same strain a* they are written. Occasionally we

can say: "Your letter, the contents of which are appreciated," but seldom more. To the writers of "unburdening" letters may I say that their efforts are ceitainly appreciated, "inside the walls," of course, by quite a number of the staff. It wae, h lwcvor, a woman who took the prize for brevity combined with clarity. She wrote: ''Dear Sirs, —Please , buy five thousand pounds of something I can sleep on." On the credit side, too, are the wives of .those customers whose duty takes them abroad. Necessarily given a large measure of ■ control over affairs, they discharge thie duty with amazing efficiency. There are also those "matriarchs" who, in their specialised knowledge of their own holding of stocks and sharee, have even given mental jolts to the stock clerks. The most amazing business woman I ever met might easily have gojie through life without suspecting her powers.

Brought up in comfort amounting to luxury, she married young. Her husband proved a "bad egg," and eventually faded right out of the picture. The pleasant facade of financial success he had reared collapsed, leaving a bare sustenance for his wife. For a lung time wo "carried" the account. Cheques were cashed for a* little as 10/. The woman showed the strain of her difficulties. Then, suddenly, the account began t>> pick up. The woman confessed that e-hc had gone into business. Starting with a borrowed £50, she took a email stall at a fair. She had a wonderful flair for public * entertainment, and the stall grew on to a small business and then expanded into a large business. When she was killed in a motor car accident the car was her own Rolls.. The death duties were amazing when the small origin of the estate was considered. Dealing with women customers a bank manager has to '"look both ways." The bank rules still embody the idea of chivalry and protection, and necessarily so. Certain documents, particularly guarantees, must be signed in the presence of a solicitor. The bank manager must also be friend and counsellor tin matters which

are sometimes well outside oanking practice. In fact, he must have a "good • chair-side manner." j < On the other hand, he must protect .' (he bank from some women. "Beauty, \ in distress' , still finds chinka in armour. ; i Even more so when the armour is old < and ruiity. One very lovely woman charmed— ' there is no other word for it—a loan \ > lioin a bank manager on the securitv 1 of a very mixed parcel of shares. Then she defaulted. Time and agahi' the bank wrote. Finally she was givon j a week to repay, after which the; securities would be sold. This brought a ' reply: --Dear Sirs. —T note that you pro. I pose to sell tiie securities you hold as j collateral for my loan. I wish vou every j success. I have been trying to sell them ' for years." Even the cashier is sometimes "vamped" for a small overdraft. When beauty is combined with flattery the combination is hard to resist. An extremely pretty girl came up to! me one day on the counter. In "oasv"' French she asked for my assistance. : Over proud to be able to "use the littlFlench I brought back with me in lit IS. I responded eagerly. I "fell" , for a cheque there was every reason for not paying. Sometimes the boot ie on the other foot. One old woman did not trust bank*. She had inherited some thousands in stocks and shares Hit by bit those were I sold and credited to her nreoiiii*. Two! or three times a week she would call with a bodyguard of two or three bribed local schoolboys.

Twenty or thirty pounds would be secreted in her voluminous petticoat*. Out she would march with her rather self-conscious bodyguard. She herself was deaf to all suggestions and would not allow a halfpenny to be placed on deposit or re-invested. It was obvious she was not spending the money. In fact, she boasted that one loaf lasted her the week. Half a ]>ir.t of milk a day teemed to be the rest of her diet. She di"d before her tortuous transfer was complete. Her hoard was found beneath the mattress and floorboards. Fortune Was Smiling That Day The ronton: Her brother-in-law bad "done her" out of one hundred pounds ten years before. I Fortune occasionally stretches a finder I o«"er the covnter. The face of one young 'cashier was his fortune. It so closely re*embled that of a contemporary killed ' in the Groat War that a cheque for fSMMHi was "paid in" to the cashier for hi- own u-=e — a legacy from x'no dead bo\ 'j mother. Another man specialised in sympathy. Ho wa= always being tea-ed for tlie attention he cave to elderly women at the counter. It wa* a genuine sympathy find undemanding "lixcd" by the death of hU own mother a few- year* before. I The ten-in? went to extravagant lengths but lie hnd the last launh—a small fortune was bequeathed to him. j Rut the*e things ;i!s O —like mistakes j —doift often happen.