| WHITTLE: Don’t ‘bank on’ banks being open Saturdays |
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By: DAN WHITTLE, Post Columnist
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Posted: Sunday, October 23, 2011 7:16 am
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“Murfreesboro Bank & Trust.”
“Bank of the South.”
“Commerce Union.”
“Bank of Auburntown.”
Those were bank names that rang with security; institutions that smacked of stability for families and small businesses.
Today, the word “institution” is disappearing in the reality blur of gut-jerking computerized –impersonal banking wizardry wheels and deals that leave mere mortal depositors breathless and helpless in mystified corporate frustration.
Bank name changes are coming faster than names we come up with for new grandchildren arrivals.
So many changes, it’s been years since I can name banks within five miles of my residence, or the name of the banks that line streets in nearby Murfreesboro and Woodbury.
So, corporate banking czars wherever you are, deposit this as my personal column of banking peeeeeves.
My immediate past bank was known as Bank of the South. Today, the name on the door is Pinnacle.
Now, neither name conjures up security one can bank on by our neighborhood of vulnerable low-valued middle class banking victims, formerly recognized as prized banking customers who felt valued when walking in a bank lobby.
There I was, looking nice and not bothering anybody, sometimes known as the “Whittle Way,” on an otherwise beautiful recent crisp fall morning, when the latest wave of banking insecurity swept through my soul.
I was in a great mood as I motored into the bank deposit line, about to cash a small check, when I spied a note on the bank depository window with this warning: “As of October such and such date, this bank branch will no longer be open on Saturdays.”
A cutback in weekday banking hours was also posted.
That advisory note sent up warning signals dating back to whirlwind days when my former locally owned bank was gobbled up in the nation’s current greed-induced glut days of banking take-overs and buy-outs.
For example, when Pinnacle took over Bank of the South, we mere depositors were initially advised our handy-dandy bank branch, filled with warm neighborhood banking professionals we knew personally, was about to close.
That’s when the Whittles, along with a swirl of other mere depositors, sounded a collective outcry: “OK, you can change the name of our bank, but leave our little handy-dandy branch bank alone!!!”
A gaggle of depositors threatened to remove our modest accounts, in other words.
It wasn’t an outcry of our branch being merely handy to the community, the new bank gurus located somewhere up the mystical chain of high finance leading all the way up to New York and down to Atlanta and beyond global corporate seas, were about to change our bank branch location to a more dangerous high-traffic density major malfunction junction street intersection.
Simply stated, the new location would have been dangerous to drive in and out of, especially to us more vulnerable senior citizens.
Normally, this forum is not one of whines, moans and groans for I know, being that I’ve been paid to travel the world multiple times in a 45-year newspapering career, we still live in the greatest nation of freedoms in the world.
But, times are a-changing in today’s business world so fast, it makes ones’ head swirl with insecurity.
Long gone, is the old stand-by saying: “You can bank on that.”
The fireplug that sits nearest my home, for example, is way more secure in functionality than my bank, at least in my mind.
Next thing you know, our nation won’t have mail delivery on Saturdays.
Guess I’ll take up fishin’ on Saturdays, where I can at least deposit my frustrations on a trusty ditch bank.
Amen!! MP |
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