Lack of information irks customers

I REFER to the letter “Review this unfair practice by the banks” (The Star, April 1). I have encountered the same problem.

In my humble opinion, not only is this practice unfair, what makes the matter worse is the lack of proper notification from banks prior to this change. In my case, the banks did not bother to send me any formal notice before implementing the change.

When I highlighted this issue to the bank officer, I was told that banks have the right to unilaterally change any term and condition of their products and services as and when they wish.

Bank Negara only requires banks to post a notice of such change on the respective banks’ website and/or in the respective banks’ branches 21 days before the change takes effect. Bank Negara does not require banks to send out any notices to the affected account holders at all.

I was flabbergasted when I heard this. In any commercial arrangement, it is common practice that the party that wishes to initiate a change to the pre-existing arrangement has to send the other party a formal notice before any changes take effect. It is absurd to expect customers to surf the bank’s website every few days, or visit its branches every few weeks to check whether the terms and conditions of their bank accounts have changed. I do not understand why Bank Negara allow banks to treat the Malaysian public so shoddily.

Nowadays, I regularly receive email and SMS notifications from banks promoting their latest banking products, many of which are totally unrelated to the products that I am using now. These email and texts are essentially marketing spam. It appears that banks have no qualms about sending spam to customers; they are even willing to spend quite a substantial sum of money to do so (each text sent by SMS costs banks a few sen).

But when banks want to change the terms and conditions of their products to something that is less favourable to the customers, they are reluctant to send out any proper notice to the affected customers, conveniently hiding behind Bank Negara’s policy that allows them to do so.

I hope Bank Negara can clarify and also enlighten the public about its policy on product disclosure and requirement on notices that banks need to send out to their customers.