When bankers bend the knee

Conversation at a local watering hole last night turned to banks, and the kind of service we pay for, but don’t get. But first we had to check for hidden mikes and eyed each other to make sure that a local agent provocateur was not among us. Why the paranoia? Well from evidence presented in two major stories carried by the Panama Star in recent months, banks in Panama seem to have a tendency to rush to the courts crying libel and slander whenever anyone complains loudly about the way they have been treated.

So when you want to talk about long lines in Banco Nacional, leading to a teller who seems to spend most of the working day running up and down to other tellers to get answers (no pre-training or updating?); or when HSBC tells a business client they can’t make a transfer to the UK (where they are headquartered) sending him scurrying to a Canadian bank (Scotiabank) to get the transaction done; or when Citibank blocks the credit cards of a customer because they had tried to access them from an ATM too many times, when in fact she hadn’t used the card for days, and had to join a long line of unhappy cardholders two days later to try to get the problem righted; or when a girl behind a computer at Banistmo (now part of HSBC) airily tells a doctor he should forget about buying his new apartment and settle for a two bedroom cottage in Arraijan (he walked across to Banco General and his mortgage was approved the same day)... when you do talk of these things, look out for whose listening.

Which makes it understandable that while the banking world shudders in the eye of the world economic crisis, there is some gloom tinted glee among their customers over how the mighty have fallen, and learned to bend the knee to ask for government largesse. Those very people who charge for every “service” and fail to provide it.

It becomes even more interesting that in a swindle that makes the local DMG pyramid look like a street corner crap shoot, big banks the world over fell into the trap of believing a fellow financial wizard Bernard Madoff. He was responsible for the biggest scam in the history of Wall Street, if not the world. $50 billion went missing.

But he was one of the first to admit that he is heading for jail, to join many other top level US financial wizards come fraudsters. With all of its corruption problems the US can be praised for its understanding that if you commit the crime you pay the penalty.

Compare that to Panama’s feeble record in punishing white collar transgressors. A recent survey showed that in fact, and in perception, one of the most corrupt parts of Panama’s institutions is the Assembly itself.

Is it likely to change? Not when the fox and the chickens work in unison. That’s why in most of the world in a word association test, if you say Panama, after Canal, comes corruption.

KEEPING THE PUB So Madonna’s ex, Guy Ritchie gets to keep their former joint possession, The Punchbowl, a west London pub. (West London is the “classy” end of town, viz., Costa del Este, Punta Pacifica). That’s part of the $76 million dollar divorce settlement. Doesn’t sound like a bad deal for a guy who was previously down to his last $35 million.

But what about the adopted kids. Many protested at the time that they were being uprooted from their own environment to share a life with a non stop traveling performer with little time to play mother, except when cameras are around.