Some times ago, I read somewhere (probably newspaper) about a telco client who was not too happy to receive his refund via foreign bank cheque. He was saying something along the line of patriotism of using local bank which had more branches everywhere.
Point taken. We all should support local products.
For one thing, bank negara regulates the number of branches these foreign banks are allowed to open. For another, an organisation as huge as the said telco might need more banking facilities than just issuing cheques. Probably for the ease of internet banking especially when your organisation has huge number of outlets and branches but one centralised finance / cash management unit. You'll need the ease of swapping all cash from all location to be invested overnight and returned to their respective location on the next day. And the need for secured and reliable foreign currency remittance for overseas investment or payment to overseas suppliers (or payment of loan/other debts). Or probably that bank also offered the best rate for financing. Plus corporate credit card. And probably, for the reason of outsourced cheque printing and delivery. It was easier and cheaper to generate the list of creditors to pay, send over to the bank and have the bank print the cheques, payment vouchers and mailed them out than to hire an entire department of accounts payable staffs.
Of course, local banks offered all those cash management thingy too. Only you'd have to be very, very patient and often had to grit your teeth. Or in my case, I was grinding my teeth on top of the first two. So, afraid that my teeth would soon turn to powder, I jumped ship. That is, I changed to foreign bank. But of course, for the obvious reason, I still maintained local bank for payroll purpose. Needless to say, my teeth are no longer in any danger of dissappearing except for biological reason.
But then again, it was just my point of view, a mokcik who rarely venture out from the comfort of her finance world.
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