Get The Best Out of Your Bank

You can learn to use your bank. Your bank wants you to use them. It is in your favour to use your bank well. I have often spoken with bank customers who say things like ' I don't want to be seen to be troubling you' or ' You may start thinking I come to the bank too often' You have to be visible to your bankers. By this I mean transaction-wise. It is the record of activities on your account that gives your bank an idea of how your account is performing.
. Some bank customers make the mistake of assuming that accumulating deposit only into their accounts is what their bank wants. Not so. You need to bring in and take out, bring in and take out, bring and take out ! This shows balanced activity. Shows your operation is dynamic. It is a healthy flow. You use money and you make money which you bring back to the bank.


Your bank will be more willing to listen to you when you want to talk because you have a real account picture. A picture which shows you know what you are doing and that you have a healthy financial habit and life. There is no other compelling way to assess your financial skill other than reviewing your account history.


. Some other bank customers mis-out on another opportunity to enhance their account picture when they pay cash directly into another person's account in the same bank when they have the need to do that.

Here's what I mean : A and B have their accounts in Mybank plc. A is obligated to make a payment of 50 units of money into B's account for value received. The long term beneficial way for A to do this is to pass the money through her account into B's, (even if the cash was not already in the account of A). Unfortunately, often, if A brought the cash fresh for the payment she pays the money directly into B's account -thereby missing an opportunity to enhance her account position by hitting it with the activities ( the deposit and transfer ). She thinks she has done smart by avoiding her account, and possibly the charges she may have paid. In this way she throws away so many position building opportunities. When she needs assistance from her bank, she sadly discovers she has not created sufficient history to help her request. Note also that some banks with well articulated IT program do not even make charges for intra-bank fund movements, to begin with.


. Leverage on your bank's fund. You can get rich using your bank's money for a fee, usually called interest charges. You have more money to execute your works than you would using your own earnings and this affords you a greater capacity. This interest charge is spread over the duration of the facility granted, and as such the impact is not as painful as those who are wont to dread bank charges would imagine. Usually, interest charges are set when the loan or overdraft is being set-up, meaning it is programmed into the bank's process software, and normaly the output does not vary from the original instruction. However, atimes you see interest charges either failing to drop on schedule or wrong amount is calculated to the disadvantage of the customer. The customer could contest both these grounds and get reprieval or reduction respectively. Even an outright waiver of the remainder of interest could be granted the customer, upon application, in cases where the interest payment has been going on for a very long time, albeit within the agreement.

. Another bank charge called commission on turnover ( COT ) is one which also causes customers to be unhappy. Simply, COT is the product of 1/1000 of the value of all cheques drawn on a current account over a period of charge (usually a month) multiplied by the rate applied by the bank. What most customer's do not know is that this rate can be bargained. All the customer has to do is ask. If you do not ask, the bank won't yield any ground. Unfortunately, your bank will usually start you off on the maximum rate. And you will stay on it until you find out by yourself that you could negotiate it downwards.