How much do you hate your bank?

How do I hate my bank? Let me count the ways.

I hate Standard Bank because they charge R12 a page to send me electronic statements. That’s right: electronic statements, not paper ones. Not even lawyers have the cheek to do that.

I hate Standard Bank because they charge service fees for not delivering service and management fees for managing nothing.

I hate Standard Bank because they charge through the nose for absolutely everything.

I hate Standard Bank because I have been a customer of theirs for seventeen years and nothing in their demeanour towards me acknowledges my loyalty or the squillions I’ve forked out to them over the years.

I hate them because they gouge me at every opportunity.

I just hate them.

Sadly, Australian banks are not much better. That’s one thing Australians and South Africans have in common: they both hate their banks; justifiably so, given that Australian banks also charge you to so much as you walk in the door.

Perhaps it’s comforting to know that incompetence is not limited to South Africa. I’ve had endless problems with my Australian bank, whether it was sending a card to a wrong address, asking if I wanted to apply for a credit card despite having been turned down by the same bank the week before (duh), or failing to activate my debit card (despite the fact that I went into a branch to have this sorted out) and forcing me to fork out for a plane ticket on my South African credit card, thus costing me even more and making me dream of a debt-free, credit-card free future fade ever further into the pastel mists of impossibility.

And what’s more, they charged me the equivalent of over R40 for something they amusingly refer to as “service”.

Let’s face it, all banks everywhere are ghastly, bloated institutions that have only the interest of their ghastly bloated management at heart. Their executives are paid jaw-dropping fortunes to come up with yet more schemes to part the public from their own money.

I hate them all.