I AM not a religious person at all. I chose philosophical explanations over theological arguments. But one theological position I admire because of how it is presented, though I don’t accept it, is that of the philosopher of the Holy Roman Empire, St. Thomas Aquinas.
Aquinas posited that everything in life has explanation and that there is no illogical or random act among mankind. When you live in Guyana you wonder what Aquinas would have made of it. I have not done the research into the thousands of columns I would have written over the past 35 years and which subject I would have done a large amount of commentaries on, but I think the banking system has to be one of them.

So here is yet another article on the banks in Guyana. Do the things the banks are doing in Guyana have explanations in logic, philosophy or theology? My wife and I went to Republic Bank to do a transaction only to be told the account is dormant. We were surprised because we know the bank sends you a notification of impending dormancy. No one wants to face a dormant account because the conditions to reactivate are nightmarish and harshly repressive and are completely asinine and irrelevant. I will explain as I go on.
I explained that no notice was sent to me and the bank can verify that because there must be a paper trail. An apology was offered, but I still had to endure the repressive conditions. Why if an account is dormant one has to produce a set of documents when dormancy is the opposite to money-laundering?
Money laundering is the suspicious movement of money using the financial house as conduit. Dormancy is no movement of money. It means the reactivation should not follow the requests to meet anti-laundering laws because you are not moving money. In fact, your money is static. Why then you cannot just produce your identification and have reactivation immediately?

I have spoken with many important officials at the Bank of Guyana and in the commercial banks about this dormancy degeneracy. They all agree that dormancy is not related to money laundering for small savers. So why haven’t the Ministry of Finance and Bank of Guyana inform the commercial banks that this nightmare should be removed for small savers? This is the first thing I am going to raise with Vice President Jagdeo when I see him.

Republic Bank informed me and my wife that a saving account goes dormant after two years and constant ATM use within those two years does not prevent dormancy. Within those two years, you have to make at least one physical appearance in the bank and perform a transaction.
But the machine is a bank service. If you put your paycheck every month into the ATM, the next day an official clears it. The next week, you withdraw from the ATM. That is activity in your account. Why do you have to go in person once within a two- year period when the machine of the bank facilitates you. Instead of you withdrawing money and banking your cheque in the building, a machine in the building acts as the teller.

The Bank of Nova Scotia put a six-month expiration time limit on saving accounts. If there is no movement in the account within a six-month period, it becomes dormant. If a country where over 80 percent of the population is between one day old and fifty years, people then are busy with their lives. Why in that context, Scotia would expect you to have constant activities in your account for a six- month period?

Scotia differs from Republic Bank in that they accept ATM use within the six-month period so within that period you don’t have to make a physical appearance in the building. It is impossible to complain to the CEOs of commercial banks because as a policy the CEOs do not facilitate complaints. The banks say that they have a customer complaint desk.
The problem is there is no assurance that the complaints desk will forward your grievances to the CEO. The CEOs of commercial banks are the most invisible and elitist group in this country. It is virtually impossible for a customer to talk to them. A patient can talk to the busiest surgeon in Guyana. A citizen can get to talk to the President of Guyana. A citizen can get to talk to some of the richest business people in this country. A fan can get to talk to Guyana’s busiest cricket superstars. But a bank customer can never have a word with the CEO. It is forbidden by the banks.