Money Mail’s campaign should lead to lasting change

MONEY MAIL’S campaign to improve the service offered to bereaved people deserves high praise. It also deserves to bring about lasting change in the way banks and other major companies treat customers at the very hardest of times.

I can barely comprehend how difficult Victoria Bischoff found writing the article about her experiences after her mother’s death. Can any of us have read her account without wondering how we would cope in such a situation?

I was equally saddened to read the stories of Money Mail readers who also had not received sensitive help after the death of a loved one.

Most of us try to do a good job at work and those of us who work for banks are no different. However, the reality is that we are all human and mistakes do happen.

That’s no excuse — it simply underlines how important it is that banks give employees the best possible training and create the right processes to make sure customers are given the right support and service when they are handling the estate of a deceased spouse, parent, relative or perhaps a friend.

Victoria’s experiences and those of other Money Mail readers have been heard clearly at the top of the UK’s banking industry. This newspaper’s campaign was discussed at a meeting last week of managing directors of the UK’s retail banks, hosted by the British Bankers’ Association. There was a clear consensus that banks need to do better.

The committee decided to launch a taskforce to find ways to improve the service of customers dealing with bereavement. We have already begun assembling this working party, which will be a joint venture with the Building Societies Association.

We will be meeting with Money Mail later this month to hear their thoughts about what would best help customers. There will also be a role for our consumer panel, which includes representations from organisations such as Citizens Advice, The Money Advice Service and Age UK.

This taskforce’s work will not be straightforward, however.

We want customers who have suffered a bereavement to be able to handle the financial implications of the death with the minimum of bureaucracy. But at the same time it’s vital that the right checks are in place.

Any changes will need to fit in with the existing system of wills to make sure that only the right people get access to the deceased’s money. It’s also vital that fraudsters posing as next of kin can’t close down accounts and steal the money of someone who has not died.

There are other issues that will need careful thought. Whether inquiries of this kind are best handled at a branch level or over the phone by a specialist unit of staff who handle bereavement every day is one such dilemma.

These are exactly the sorts of issues that the experts on our taskforce will need to consider.

Banks know there is room for improvement in this area. Now it’s up to this group to find out how to raise the standard for banks and offer an example other businesses can follow.