Member question: “This question is about the cultural practice of banking where our customers bank. With today’s technological abilities this makes no sense to me. Do other companies have this practice? Has anyone had success in changing this behavior pattern of banking where your customer banks?
- “The example I am currently dealing with is in Korea, where large customers use [a particular bank] and although they are not a preferred bank partner, we seem to be using them because these customers bank there and insist their vendors bank there (or at least that is what I am being told).
- “Anyone else having this experience and/or had success with changing?”
Peer answer 1: “I would agree with you. The only place where we used to do this was in Mexico, to facilitate payments by our customers, given dual currency usage in the country and the absence of interbank payments in USD (in the past).
- “With regulatory changes a few years back, this need has also vanished, so we moved away from this, albeit with some customer communication.”
Peer answer 2: “If you follow this practice you might end up changing banks often or end up with many accounts or banking partners which will translate into more BAM and further costs.”
Peer answer 3: “We do not follow that practice either.”