Scotiabank responds to ‘loose vampire’ allegations
THE EDITOR, Madam:
WE WRITE in response to the letter captioned ‘Scotiabank – a loose vampire’ (Gleaner, May 9, 2020). We understand the concerns expressed and want to use this opportunity to affirm our commitment to providing our customers with the highest level of service.
The bank has put several new measures in place in light of the Government’s efforts to contain the spread of COVID-19 and to ensure that we create a safe environment for our employees and customers.
These measures include reduced opening hours and staff rotation to allow for the required six feet physical distancing among the employees who work in the branch. This means that we have a reduced complement of employees to serve our customers, and in most branches, we can only serve customers at every other station. As a result of these changes, we had to restrict the types of transactions done in our branches to complex ones that cannot be done via any of our other channels. Otherwise, wait times for all customers, especially those who have no other option than to visit the branch, would be significantly increased.
We have four other channels for customers to access banking services, these are online banking, mobile banking, ABMs and telephone banking, via our TeleScotia service.
We are also encouraging customers to discontinue cheque issuance and to utilise electronic direct deposits. We have been working with our business customers to provide them with access to online banking to facilitate digital payments and to open accounts for their employees and regular payees who do not currently have bank accounts.
Customers requesting cheque encashment would be redirected to our ABMs to deposit their cheques. Most of our customers have an instant access feature to their accounts that allow immediate access to cheques deposited up to an assigned limit. Staff at all our locations are available to educate or assist customers with this feature. Our branch managers are also empowered to make exceptions in circumstances that the policy will result in undue hardship.
Scotiabank remains committed to safeguarding the health and wellbeing of our valued customers and team members throughout this challenging period.
BANK OF NOVA SCOTIA JAMAICA LIMITED