More Sad Tales As Banks Enforce COVID-19 Checks

By Ella Makondo

Repeated scenes of customers fighting in front of bank doors have become a recurring tale for many persons wishing to transact activities in the light of social distancing guidelines arising from the COVID-19 pandemic. 

This is despite the fact that the pressure on banks was supposed to have been eased since after they were cleared to resume full operations in early May.

While some banks have been quick to make people feel at home, a few banks including at least one tier one bank, have been adjudged by several customers to be negligent on the issue.

Customers unwilling to put up with the hassle have resorted to other channels to meet their banking transactions.

One favourite channel has been the Point of Sale ( POS) machine which has become a favourite tool for many banks and in fact, redefining the business model for some of the country’s leading banks.

However, many customers still have to do with a physical presence. That to some extent has defined the proactive disposition of some of the banks.

The fight and fury that has graced the image of some banks has led some customers to switch operations to more friendly and accommodating banks.

Indeed, some bank customers who spoke with GWG said going to the bank has become a frustrating exercise as they end up spending the whole day waiting in a queue just to gain access to the banking hall to do   bank transactions.

One customer in the Amuwo Odofin area of Lagos said:
“My ATM expired in April and despite the sms from my bank to come and collect a new one I refused after I saw the crowd that besieged the front of the bank. My option was to switch to using that of another bank,” the customer told GWG.

A resident of Lafia , Queen Shamaki, said she was disappointed at her bank (name withheld) when she went to deposit some money , saying some staff at the bank  allowed  their friends and relations to go into the banking hall without due process, a situation she said generated a fight between one of the security men and a customer.

Shamaki said that due to the enforcement of the COVID-19 protocols, the crowd outside the bank was much as staff began to favour their friends and relatives, bringing about a misunderstanding between the customers and the security men at the bank.

According to her , a misunderstanding  arose when a man who was at the bank  to  collect his Automated Teller Machine ( ATM) card  was not allowed to go into the bank by the security man on duty who told him that the bank was not attending to ATM  card issue at the moment .

She said that the customer became angry and started ranting as his reaction created tension at the bank which led to a  fight between him and one of the bank’s security guards.

“One of the guys wanted to go in and collect his ATM card only for the security man to tell him that he cannot go in, that the bank was not attending to ATM matters at that time so the man became angry at started fighting, the fight was so serious that he had to called his brother who is a police man on phone who  intervened  in the matter before normalcy was restored at the place.

“I spent four hours at the bank just  to deposit a small amount of money. The crowd was much and what I saw was surprising , customers who knew some of the workers at the bank were allowed to go in without joining the queue while some of  us who did not know anybody stayed there for four hours.

Another bank customer, Perpetual Ikyande told GWG she prefers to use POS machine  just to save the stress of going  to the bank due to the crowd at her bank.

“I got to the bank at about 10 minutes to 8 am but when I left the bank  it was after 2 pm. The process was very difficult for me and I decided that day that I won’t go to the bank again except it is very necessary.

“I prefer someone to send money to my account and I will use ATM machine to withdraw instead of going inside because  the stress is too much. The security at the bank were allowing just few  persons to go inside the banking hall and before you get in, you must sanitiser your hands with an alochol -based hand sanitiser.

“Although the  services at the bank was okay but the process was tedious. A lot of people are scared of going since the beginning of COVID-19 because of crowd, even me it was an incident that made me to go to the bank” , she said.

However, Victor Alhassan, a 300 level student of Economics at the Nasarawa State University Keffi said he was not comfortable with the enforcement of the COVID-19 protocols, saying he does not believe in the existence of the virus.

“COVID-19 is  affecting everything today and  to me, I think this whole COVID-19 issue  is a scam, because since it started I have not seen anybody in my neighborhood that has been diagnosed with the disease so that has given me the conviction that there is no COVID-19.”

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