I am no fan of Senator Desmond Bannister, but truth, common sense and bright ideas have a way of washing away any personal, cultural or political biases one might acquire during one’s lifetime.
His recent comments as reported in the evening daily in respect to the length of time it takes for cheques to clear, particularly those drawn on banks outside of The Bahamas, resonated with me. He exposed a long standing ugly practice of the clearing banks.
I have always maintained that the commercial banking sector in The Bahamas is a cartel that was allowed to flourish under the ‘watchful’ eyes of the Central Bank, to the continuing detriment of the average Bahamian consumer. In many ways, in economic terms, a cartel can be more insidious than a monopoly, to the everlasting disadvantage of the consumers they serve.
Pray tell me, why should I have to wait six weeks to access the proceeds of a cheque written on a bank in Miami, or Los Angeles for that matter. Even more nefarious is the practices where I deposit a cheque drawn on a local bank, but I have to wait almost a week to access the funds, while when I write a cheque, it clears my account in a day or so.
The fact of the matter fellow citizens, is that it is not in the banks’ best interest to speed up the process. I dare say that they benefited over the years very handsomely from these ugly practices and it is but time they be reigned in.
Several years ago, the ‘float’ generated by cheques waiting to be cleared by banks in the United States, created quite a stir in that country, and my recollection is that the Federal Reserve Bank intervened and some corrective measures were implemented.
With the technology available in today’s marketplace, there is no excuse for allowing these pirates to continue on there well-trodden path.
Jerry Roker
Letter To The Editor, The Nassau Guardian
