Over the years I have had a kind of love/hate relationship with the ASB. They are nice enough people but they send me strongly worded letters from time to time – the last was in February. After several weeks of running around getting various bumflufferies together there was the slight impediment to my complying with their “We may decide to end our banking relationship with you if you don’t provide us with said documents by the end of May” letter, because the branch was not open due to coronavirus infantilism.
After a phone call to the woman I had been dealing with in their “Polite-Telling-Off” department, and lots of other hassles, the problem was eventually solved when the local manager decided, magnanimously, to meet me at the branch. He was masked up: virtue-signalling in the extreme as to what a good person he is by not being at work lest a customer may cough.
One quick glance at the various paperwork, a glance at my passport and driver’s license, an even quicker phone call to this woman in Wellington (where else?) to say “Yep, it’s him”, and all was well. The woman I’d been dealing with emailed to say all was well and then informed me what the actual problem had been.
I had committed the wickedness of – (wait for it) – depositing cash, actual readies – banknotes and coins – into my personal account to the grand total of $1224 whilst being…a US citizen.
Oh don’t worry folks, I get this harassment all the time from the ASB, as one presumes, do other US citizens residing in New Zealand; just never for something as ‘innocent’ as that deposit last July (I’d won the treble at the Ashburton races, having picked “Where’s Wally” in race 3). And changing banks won’t make any difference.
My reason for mentioning all this is to point out there are tens of billions of dollars in mortgages which are soon to be seeing their “introductory” interest rate at least double, government bond yields are at the highest level since November 2014, and inflation is at nightmare proportions. Therefore a bank failure is not the theoretical matter it once was. Can your neighbour really afford a seven-figure mortgage at, say, 8%? (I doubt it).
So if the ASB went tits up I am sure that would be a sad thing for their staff but my compassion doesn’t extend to helping bail them out.
A stomach-churning reality is there is a sneaky wee thing called “Open Bank Resolution” which is the procedure for the Reserve Bank to step in if a bank fails. Boiled down, all accounts are frozen (one in particular springs to mind!), and the next business day you get access to the funds – minus a portion which will be stolen from you to help bail the bank out!
Why the bank failing is suddenly my problem – to the extent I have to chip in my hard-earned money – is not explained; nor is what percentage of my money will be stolen.
I don’t know about you, dear reader, but the floorboards or a safe deposit box is looking really good right about now. Why take the risk?