Worried BoI staff and customers bombard union
The Irish Bank Officials Association (IBOA), which represents 7,000 of BoI’s 12,000 employees, yesterday said its offices were “inundated” with calls from people wondering if their jobs were safe or if their local branch was to close.
“They’re not getting information from the bank so they ring us. It’s crazy here at the moment. But we’re more or less in the same position as themselves until we see the company’s statement,” said a spokesman.
Senior IBOA officers in BoI were preparing to gather at the union’s offices in Dublin this morning to await the announcement, which will be made at 7am in the form of a trading statement to the stock exchange.
“We’ll be examining it immediately and working out the implications so that we can inform our members. Our priority is to get detailed information to members as quickly as possible because there has been a lot of speculation and very little real information.”
Radical cost-cutting at the bank has been flagged for months by senior management and jobs have been the most obvious target, but the scale of anticipated cuts has come as a shock to employees who could see the workforce trimmed by one-sixth.
It is expected the cuts will be achieved mainly through redundancies but also through redeployment within the company and transfers to outside firms, which already provide services to the bank such as IT maintenance.
But there is also a fear that some of the company’s 250 local branches in the Republic may be sacrificed as part of the streamlining exercise, ending a link with communities that dates back to the late 1700s.
The Consumer Association yesterday said it was concerned about the effects that any significant cuts would have on customers, who were already seeing a steady decline in the level of personal service available from banks.
The association’s chief executive, Dermott Jewell, said it was highly unlikely job cuts could be achieved without further automation of banking services or out-sourcing, both of which changed the nature of the customer’s relationship with their bank.
“The average customer is already taking on an awful lot of the work of the bank themselves. They go on-line, they do a lot of banking over the telephone, they don’t visit their branch as often,” he said.
“So of course there is concern if the facilities or services are to be cut back further, because that means more work for the customer and that means a reduction in the whole value element of the fees they pay to the bank to look after their money.”
Mr Jewell said BoI customers who might find the range or quality of services affected by the expected cuts should remember the recent changes to banking regulations designed to make it easier to switch banks. “Consumers should always be on the lookout for a bank with a better deal. We do it with car insurance and all sorts of other products,” he said.
“A bank is no more than a service provider and its service is looking after your money.
“If someone can do it better or you can get it cheaper, you should have no qualms about moving your custom.”
