Israel Banks: AHHHHH!

September 24, 2007 - 12:30 PM by Stephanie

In a ten-year span spent living in San Francisco, I stepped into my bank branch a grand total of three times: once to open an account (30 minutes), once to sign papers for a loan (20 minutes) and once to take a close up look at the building architecture for a story I was writing.

If you hail from a place that doesn’t necessitate taking the entire afternoon off work to open a checking account, then the Israel banking experience can be a shocker. So can the “fees system” which is pretty darned arbitrary. Wells Fargo, referred to in some circles as “Wells Chargo” for its banking fees system, has stiff competition in the Mid-East…

But as Game blogger Yehuda points out, at least things have improved over the years. Nowadays when the teller is chatting on the phone and drinking coffee while a line backs up, she’s not blowing cigarette smoke into your face. Bravo.

There is no institution so difficult for ordinary morals to deal with than the Israeli bank. You may think the American DMV, airport security, or immigrations is a pain in your petard, but you ain’t seen nothing like an Israeli bank.

On the positive side, we have at least passed the days when the clerk would literally light up and blow smoke in your face while chatting with her babysitter on the phone. Nowadays, she simply chats with her babysitter on the phone without the cigarette.

….Israeli service people have a socialist mentality, which means that the service they give is irrelevant to their pay and they expect that they cannot be fired owing to a strong labor union. Some of the service industries have progressed, either through privatization or weakening union representation. But not the banks.

Bank employees seem to exude the attitude that since they’re at their jobs, you’re not missing work. Banking takes as long as it’s going to take, and there’s no sense in rushing it. You’re expected to take all day at the bank, if that’s what it takes, and it’s just going to be longer if you yell.

Follow this link to Yehuda’s Bank Rant. May we all have positive banking days. Amen.

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