Automated
Teller Machines otherwise known as ATM were designed to reduce stress on
customers of banks seeking to withdraw money. ATMs provide services to card
holders wherever they may find themselves. Some of us who know the cheque era
can remember the frustrations customers experience collecting money especially
at the end of the month when salaries are paid. Customers have to be given a
tally because the queue is so long and chaotic. In the Nigeria’s characteristic
manner of impatience, people shun the queue, reserve and even physically fight.
Some
readers may remember one popular advert, I can’t remember for which bank where
customers come to banks with their sleeping mat and that popular phrase ‘’give
me my tally number’’ is still fresh in my mind. To make things worse, you can
only cash money from the bank whose cheques you have. For instance, you can’t
use First banks cheque to collect cash at UBA. If you are given a Unity Bank cheque
you can only cash it at a Unity bank. Transfers take longer time, one have to
use bank drafts etc.
Today,
many young people do not even know that people use cheques to cash money. Some
months a go my ATM has experienced and I needed money, so I gave my son, a
level three undergraduate student a cheque to cash and he was puzzled. What is
this? I explained to him what a cheque is and he was surprised that one can use
that paper and collect money. All he knows is the ATM card. It was an
experience for him to cash money using a cheque.
During
the pre-ATM era, people go to the bank once, twice or thrice in a month and
manage their spending in such a way as to avoid going to the bank again until
the coming month. That in some way helps customers to spend less and with some
degree of discipline. It helps customers to ensure that they have cash at hand
for every future transaction they may do because when the time comes the banks
might be closed or the long queues may delay or stop the transactions. In that
period, it is money on demand-like. The coming of the ATM changed all that.
When
ATMs were introduced, many people hesitate to use them because they are scared
of the technology and reliability of the cards. So it was started as a kind of
a voluntary service. If you want, you apply and get one. As usual young people who
see it as vogue started adapting the ATM before old people who are more used to
the cheque system. But the Federal Government at the time was pushing for what
it calls a cashless economy, even when many people including me feel it is too
early to go fully cashless. Today, most bank customers have ATM cards,
sometimes at request sometimes automatic. Even housewives have their ATMS and
usually send someone to cash on their behalf, giving the cashier their pass
word and all with no insurance.
With
an ATM gave us more freedom to cash money at will. It gives us the opportunity
to do transactions using our computers or even mobile handsets. It gives us the
freedom to withdraw money from any available ATM anywhere in the world. ATM
cards created many opportunity we never thought possible. But they also come
with their unique problems. Every new technology brings its challenges to
people’s way of life. Just like mobile phones changed our lifestyles leaving us
wondering how life will be without them (forgetting that we lived without them
safely and well), so have ATM cards.
Here
we are holding beautiful well designed cards that we can always use anywhere
anytime to withdraw cash and do transactions with the available monies in our
account. So, with our ATM cards today, we have changed the way we spend money.
We no longer have to cash money in advance and keep because we can always cash
money from the ATM. We spend more money now and spend more at shops that
operate Point of Sale (POS) where one can use his card to pay for transactions.
One doesn’t feel as much pinch when he uses ATM card as when he uses cash, so
one can spend more using card.
The
major challenges customers faces using the ATM cards include annoying phrases
like dispense error, temporarily unable to dispense cash, the issuer is none cooperative, out of service and the ATM queues which
are different from the banking hall queues.
Let’s start with the quality of service provided. All the signboards of
ATMs usually have 24/7 on them, meaning, available for 24 hours daily, 7 times
a week. This shows that one can withdraw money any time we chose. But, is that
so? Can we really get the money anytime anywhere? There are ATMs located in
bank premises and some outside bank’s premises. It is understandable that you
go to a non-bank premises ATM and fail to get money, but it is inconceivable
that you fail to get money in a bank-premises ATM.
This
is one aspect that bankers show most irresponsibility to customers. Bankers
should know the frequency and quantum of withdrawals at different periods of
the month and ensure that monies are made available at peak points-usually
month end. What are their research units doing not to understand customers
demand pattern? One can visit 10-20 ATMs and being annoyingly told temporarily unable to dispense cash.
This attitude must stop, the Central Bank of Nigeria that is preaching and
imposing this new innovation must come to the aid of customers. In some banks,
the night watchmen at their own will or on instruction lock the gates of the
ATMs at 10:00 pm while the signboard is still telling you that the ATM provides
services 24/7.
There
is also the problem of dispense error, I changed my bank because the could not
get my monies back, I was debited a hundred thousand without dispensing and my
bank could only get me 60,000 naira and for over four years today my 40,000 is
still missing in action. In the new bank I transferred, it took me 43 days to
reverse a dispense error of 20,000 naira. In fact, many people lose monies
unnecessarily due to dispense error. I have no doubt that, if CBN is to commission
a study on dispense error, it will find that Nigerians are loosing billions.
Where are the monies going? No one is being punished.
Finally,
I want to stop here with a call on the supervising agencies to come to the aid
of customers. Customers pay for the services giving by banks and banks should
be made more responsible to meeting customer’s needs. Severe punishments must
be meted on erring banks that make customers suffer from their incompetence and
neglect.
This article was pubished in DAILY TRUST, Sunday, September 20, 2015
