Madam, – According to the IMF, the cost per person of bailing out Irish banks will be higher than the equivalent costs in any other developed country. Irish people will have to dig deeper into their pockets than any others.
It might be some consolation if Irish banks provided a better service to consumers than banks in other developed countries. Sadly that is not the case.
Take as an example the Bank of Ireland 365 Online Internet banking service. To pay someone to whom I have not previously made a payment I must first alert the bank with the details of the person or organisation concerned – so far so good. I must then wait up to seven days for a letter(through the post) from the bank containing a code that will allow me to make the payment to that person. If I want to pay someone else for the first time, I must go through the same rigmarole for that person – and so on.
Is this an unfair example? Well, the Bank of Ireland won the best online banking award at the Irish Internet Association’s Net Visionary Awards in December 2007. (By the way, I did complain directly but will spare you the details of the reply regarding “added functionality”, “high take-up rate”, “benchmark” and the like.) – Yours, etc,