Banking for the rich, is that exactly what managed to upset you?

At the end of the week, the winds stormed: the banks, for heaven's sake, are offering affluent customers better interest rates on deposits.

This is how an important issue such as the scandalous performance of the banks in the face of rising interest rates fell victim to a populist debate that raises the question: are we still capable of having other debates as well?

Walla!

Of money

04/09/2022

Sunday, 04 September 2022, 10:16 Updated: 10:31

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The initials DLP, which means "unpopular opinion" have become very popular, whether they reflect the writer's desire to sound original or whether they actually reflect an unpopular opinion. Therefore, I will risk that the following opinion is indeed unpopular -

I know that supporting (also) whoever has it is almost likened to public suicide in the country of social populism, but for years we fought a unionized and socialist economy, which forced uniformity on us and prevented the creation of free market conditions. This was perhaps true for the first years of the country in The whole country was a front and the whole people an army, but in 2022 it is no longer possible to demand an elaborate competition between parties that will compete for our pockets, and still protest every time someone dares to implement it.

We all try harder for customers who bring us more.

Why would the banks do the opposite? (Photo: ShutterStock)

Everyone prefers good customers

Let's say it's not a bank but a grocery store, a car dealership, an insurance agency or a renovation contractor.

Take each of these business owners, each in their own field - and put several types of customers in front of them.

It is clear to us that at the top of the ladder will be the customers who reward the business better: the renovation contractor will "make a price" for someone who owns five apartments and uses his services frequently, far above what will be done for a young couple who wants to lightly renovate the only residential apartment they own.

The car importer will go towards the one who changes his car every year - and not towards the one who comes to him once every ten years, and the same is true of the grocery store owner who will happily "register" the daily purchase for the reliable customer who comes to pay off his debt at the end of each month or the travel agent who has an interest in keeping The customer who orders at least four vacations a year through him - and what about the insurance agent?

Won't he cut his commissions more easily with a client who insures not only his house, car and life, but also his entire business?

I want to say, we also took the important discussion about the greed - apparent or not - of the banking system too quickly, perhaps inspired by the upcoming elections, to the place of the poor versus the rich and vice versa.

I know it's unpopular to mention, but capitalism won by a knockout.

We, as a society, encourage enrichment, cultivate the greed (up to a certain limit) of the individual based on an assumption - and perhaps in fact already certain knowledge that despite the shortcomings of the system, it is the one that energizes humanity forward.

We may have exaggerated, we may have fallen in love with the test of the result at the expense of the importance of the path - the method can be criticized and even challenged with the help of other economic-social models, but one cannot be angry with the banks when they prioritize giving interest on deposits, the better and wealthier customers.

As Groucho Marx once said (as opposed to another Marx)?

"I was poor and I was rich - and richer is better."

The problem of the banking system is not the prioritization of the rich, but rather the egalitarian conduct that disadvantages everyone (Photo: ShutterStock)

The banks deserve any criticism, but not because of discrimination

If it seems to anyone that this is a letter of defense for the banking system in Israel, they are wrong: the interest rates that the banks offer us on account surplus (whether liquid or as a closed deposit for a certain period of time) are in my view shameful, even greedy - and since these are (more or less) the same percentages among All the banks - perhaps even the regulator has something to say on the subject - and without a doubt, in their basic approach they also cheat their more affluent customers (that is, the millionaires) and not only those who managed to save a few tens of thousands of shekels from the banker.

I want to say: maybe the time has come for a civil protest that will move the regulation (for example, the Bank of Israel, which is sleeping in the face of what is happening in the banking system) to action, on an issue that is a little more complex than an increase in prices in the canning sector, but the treatment of terms like "rich" or "poor" diverts The fire in the most wrong place:

It's good that the rich enjoy more, it's good that those who don't have it will aspire to become rich (with all the less good side effects that accompany this aspiration) and the fact that the banks also play by this rule is clearly not our biggest problem with you.

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• Deposits

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