The British Bank of The Middle East

 The British Bank of the Middle East

Associates of the Institute

We are an Eastern Exchange bank with our main interest in the Middle East.

Applications are invited from unmarried associates of the Institute of Bankers (English or Scottish) for Accountant and Assistant Accountants posts at our overseas branches, the post to be taken up after a short period of orientation in Head office in London.

We offer a career in a rather specialised branch of banking, slanted internationally, usually unusual, always demanding, sometimes fascinating ,never dull, intermittently unpleasant, occasionally exciting, socially expansive, generally satisfying: requiring a full man and full commitment and paying according.

Starting pay including allowances, on posting overseas is approximately 2,500 p.a., tax paid, plus free furnished accommodation (with fuel and light), and a servant or a servant’s allowance. Three months home leave, passage paid, after two years service. Good contributory Pension. Comprehensive medical insurance scheme. Excellent prospects for early advancement from initial post of Assistant Accountant, with singing powers, to Accountant and subsequently to Manager Status. 

Application to: The Secretary, by Letter of Telephone: (01-623 2030)

The British Bank of the Middle East

20 Abchurch Lane, London EC4N 7AY

A Member of the Hongkong Bank Group

Journal of the Institute of Bankers

December 1974

Status Enquiries

Dear Mr,

Emmanuel Bailey

I do not understand on what basis Mr. D.H. Wilson F.I.B. reaches the conclusion, in his letter in your October issues, that far too much importance is being attached to bankers’ references by customers who make enquiries.

He rightly points out that if a Banker is asked whether a customer is consider good for the maintenance and decoration of a property the fault lies with the baker accepting the enquiry. The purpose of requiring those wishing to initiate enquiries to do so through their own bankers, or through certain reputable trade organizations, is to minimise the risk of improper enquiries, and it is for bakers to safeguard the system be exercising some vigilance over the nature of the enquiries they make on behalf of customers. It is true that improper enquiries have tended to increase over recent years, although they represent a very small proportion indeed of the total number of enquiries.

I know of no convincing evidence to support the view that customers over-rate the importance of bankers’ reference. Mr. Wilson considers that the purpose of an enquiry is to establish that a customer can meet his commitment: if this is so, customers are surely entitled to regard a matter as vital to a business reputation as being of the highest importance.

The suggestion that bankers should encourage customers to take a more realistic view of references I am sure should apply to some customers, but a great number of those in business have a long experiences of bankers references and fully appreciate their value. A customer who wishes to be reassured as the credit position of a company or firm may seek a trade reference, or a report from a credit reference agency, but he will know that a banker’s reference is really the most significant.  

It is not surprising to find, therefore, that the customers for whom Mr. Wilson was unable to speak claimed that his replies ‘were stopping them getting a loan’. It does not follow that those who refused the loan were attaching far too much importance to Mr. Wilson’s reference since his opinion was entirely vindicated by the balance sheet showing an illiquid position. It may be Mr. Wilson’s view that those considering the loan should have reached a decision by examining the balance sheet and other factors rather than by referring to him for an opinion, but the enquiry seems a perfectly acceptable one for them to make and, in any event, the availability of a balance sheet does not affect the value of a banker’s reference. I was therefore sorry to see that he described the reference he gave as ‘a bit of paper- printed, typewritten, with a disclaimer of responsibility and unsigned’ I do not see in what way the business community is better served if a banker’s reference is so regarded.

The purpose of giving a bankers reference is to enable an enquirer to assess the risk involved in entering into a trade or financial transaction. A banker should confine his reply to an expression of opinion based on his knowledge of the account and other facts in his possession. It is inevitable that defects will appear in the practice, and Mr. Wilson is right to draw attention to the nature of some enquires. I discuss similar questions in articles in the Bankers’ Magazine (particularly January 1972).  I believe there is a need for the basic principles of the practice to be re-emphasised and for standards to be maintained, so that bankers’ references remain of use and importance in the commercial world.

Yours Faithfully

Miss. Shaun Bucknor

864 Consort Crescent

L5C 1J9

Mississauga

Ontario

Dear Mr.

Emmanuel Bailey

I would heartily endorse the contents of D.H. Wilson’s letter in your October copy of the Journal regarding the status enquiries.

It is apparent that certain branches of various banks are unaware of the Committee of London Clearing Bankers resolution that enquiries for trivial amounts be discouraged. I have been requested to express opinions on customers’ general trustworthiness and ability to services repayments as low as $3 monthly. It seems surprising that a trade cannot accept a business risk for what is effectively 75p a week from a customer’s wage packet without the necessity for enquiring of their bankers. I accept that general integrity is relevant when the total purchase price is substantial, but many of these enquiries relate to the total commitment of no more than $20-30.

We are surly reaching a stage where it is becoming impossible to acquire goods or services if a banker’s reference cannot be obtained for credit purchase or a banker’s card for cheque purchases. Bankers therefore by replying to these trivial enquiries are making them a necessity for credit purchases and thus drawing upon themselves ever increasing unprofitable and indeed costly paper-work. Refusal to originate such enquires should prevent this necessity.

At the moment the banker’s committee can assist in acquiring the post with a company most fitting for the customers’ last name. That company is Bombardier: The Evolution of mobility, Bombardier corporate office jobs. Bombardier talent community Human resources Department Career Center Application Tracking system www.careers.bombardier.com position title Advisor, Talent Acquisition and management

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Military Conduct Sheet: BUCKNOR

Curriculum Vitae

Resume: Functional Chronological

Hours of availability: Full Time permanent  

Locations: Downs view, Ontario

Remuneration Package Benefits

Yours Faithfully

Miss. Shaun Bucknor

Mount Airy P.A.

Negril P.O

Negril

Westmoreland

Jamaica

Dear Mr,

Emmanuel Bailey

I speak as someone who is very concerned about the surreptitious Americanization of ‘Queen’s English’.

With the spread of American investments over the world and the prestige that the ones (almost) almighty Dollar commanded, it has become fashionable for speakers and writers to use the word ‘billion’ when speaking about a quantity of money.

If my memory still serves me right, ‘billion’ in Queen’s English means ‘one million million’ (1,000,000 million or 1012), though the Americans use it to mean ‘one thousand million’.

Therefore, when an American says that his company has invested a billion dollars, in plain Queen’s English it means that the amount is (only) one thousand million dollars.

This will be clear and straightforward when you are reading an American magazine printed in America. But when you quote from an American sources in an English magazine and circulate that magazine all over the world including the Commonwealth where many are schooled in Queen’s English, then confusion arises, as there somehow seems to be a preference for the word billion nowadays when describing a sum of one thousand million, especially in financial maters.

This style of writing has even pervaded the pages of this august journal and I refer to page 143 of the June 1974 issues in which the writer used the expression ‘$6 billion’, though I humbly suggest (with all due respect to the writer of the informative article which I enjoyed reading) that the quantity should be (only) 6 thousand million dollars ($6,000 million). 

This is not to be taken as any insult on my part.

Rather am I concerned about perspicuity of expression-which is seldom met with nowadays?

Yours Faithfully

Miss. Shaun Bucknor

Email: shaunjamaica@gmail.com

Letters to The Editor

She Caribbean

She Star Publishing Co Ltd

Rodney Bay Industrial Estate

Massade Gros Islet P.O Box.

1146 Castries St. Lucia

West Indies

Tel: 1 758 450 7827

Fax: 1 758 450 8694

Stluciastar.com

www.shecaribbean.com

The Disgruntled Customer

Dear Emmanuel Bailey

In his letter that you published in the October issue of the Journal Mr. Gear has not answered, or even attempted to answer , Mr. Normal’s recent article ‘The Disgruntled Customer’. He has done no more than question Mr. Norman’s rather dubious statistics of the customers who transfer their accounts from one bank to another on grounds of dissatisfaction.

A point Mr. Gear does not make is that not every disgruntled customer transfer his account. Some may well stay with their bank through inertia but others may well wonder where to go. From the point of view of the public the other banks are, at lease to all outward appearances, not very different from the one with which a customer is dissatisfies.

Not infrequently, or so it seem to me, customers are discontented with what they regard as the lowered standards of the clearing banks as a group, rather than with those of any particular bank. Maybe our customers are wrong and our standards of services as high as ever they were. If there is a misunderstanding on this point it may perhaps be the result of the growth in bank advertising. Every bank now advertises on the scale beyond the dreams of the most ardent banking Public Relations man of the decade or so ago. Our difficulty may be that of living up to our advertisement.

Yours faithfully

Miss. Shaun Bucknor

Dear Mr.

Emmanuel Bailey

I was as disappointed to read Mr. A. T. Gear’s letter in your October issue, written in response to the article ‘The Disgruntled Customer’ by Mr. George Norman, as Mr. Gear was to read the original article.

His letter was almost entirely concerned with statistics. Which indicated to me that he has missed the point of the article. We all know that statistics can be made to prove almost anything. The point is, surely, that it really does not matter whether Mr. Norman or Mr. Gear are correct in the figures they quote. A fault from which a vast majority of the population suffer is apathy and if Mr. Gear believes that only one tenth of 1 percent. Of our customers are disgruntled, then I fear that he is sadly mistaken, and I must draw the conclusion that he is out of touch with reality at his head office. The only person that the figures are not higher is apathy perhaps coupled with the thought that things would not be any better at another bank.

I share Mr. Gear’s pride at the standards of services we endeavour to provide, and I am sure most of my managerial colleagues do too, but this is no justification for complacency. In the branches, we know that there was a good deal of merit in Mr. Norman’s article, even if we do not go all the way with him. Certainly, it was worthy of serious argument and consideration at a deeper level than that given by Mr. Gear. Nobody would deny, certainly not I, the marketing departments, profit estimates and objectives and the like have an important part has not assumed too high a place to the detriment of the kind of services that the ordinary customer requires. How often does one walk into a bank when on holiday, for instance, when we are in fact, the customer and find queues that make us wonder whether we have walked into the Post Office by mistake. Most of us would dearly love to give a better services than we do and while this position obtains, then Mr. Norman’s article deserves more thought than Mr. Gear’s statistics.

Yours Faithfully

Miss. Shaun Bucknor

Dear Mr. 

Emmanuel Bailey

I was most surprised to read the violent reaction of your correspondent Mr. A.T. Gear, to Mr. George Norman’s article.

As a contemporary of both gentleman, with some thirty-eight years’ service, I am only too well aware of the lower standards we have inevitably had to supply. The lack of perspective, however, is surely with Mr. Gear, as Mr. Norman, with tongue well in check, must have struck a chord in many a practising ‘High Street Banker’s’ heart.

Many of your readers will no doubt have read Mr. Norman’s recent contribution to ‘Opinion’ in the Daily Telegraph Magazine, and I would put him high up in the league table of humourous financial writers, if there is such a category, not all that far removed from Mr. Basil Boothroyd!

A sense of humour is high up in the list of priorities for successful bank management in the 1970s and long may it continues to be so

Yours Faithfully

Miss. Shaun Bucknor

York University Tutor/Editor

Manager: Doug Sloan 

Telephone: 1 416 663 0807

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