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Why do local banks take so long to clear foreign cheques?
WIGNALL'S WORLD
Mark Wignall
Sunday, August 30, 2009
If a husband working in, say, New York sends his wife who is living in Jamaica a cheque for US$400 and she lodges it to her local account which has about J$200 in it, if she is lucky and knows someone at the local branch, she will be able to collect her funds in local currency immediately.
If she knows no one at the bank, it will take anywhere between 30 and 40 days after lodgement for the funds to clear and for her to collect it. If she lives in "Crab Hole" or deep rural Jamaica and needs those funds within a week of lodgement, what option is there that is available to her?
In truth, it would appear that most Jamaicans working in the US, Canada and Britain remit their funds to Jamaica through the usual remittance services like Western Union, which allows them to collect funds in Jamaican currency immediately. But it still does not satisfy the question of why Jamaican banks have to sit on these funds for so long.
One woman wrote to me recently, "Each time I encash a US$ cheque, by the third day my husband tells me that it hits his account. I was talking to someone recently who is a US citizen and she confirmed this also - that the US$ cheques that she encashed locally hits her account in less than a week - by the third day. I tried to get information from the banks but without success. Bank staff are adamant that the 30 or 40 days is the required time for the cheque to be cleared."
I must confess that I was under the impression that this was a matter that was solved at least 10 years ago. As I have no one sending me any money, and sadly so, I never gave it a second thought until I was contacted by the reader.
"We are in a technological age and I find it hard to believe that it would still take a month for the foreign currency items to be cleared. If the item(s) are cleared within three days, or the account is debited within that time, what happens to the amounts? Are these amounts held by the payee bank for the next couple of weeks? Or are the amounts held by clearing house pending receipt of the actual item which is sent by post? Or are the amounts held by the banks? Or is it still an inefficient system that is being used and to whose benefit?
"My husband believes that the banks here are making a 'killing', but I cannot believe that they would do such a thing."
When I spoke to a manager for one of our more respected banks, he entertained the conversation with the specific condition that he would remain anonymous. "It is something that we have been discussing for some time now and, to tell you the truth, I believe we can do much better than the 30 working days required."
He explained that the 30 days were supposed to cover not just the physical dispatching of the cheque to the issuing bank, but any other problems such as signature, the possibility that the person who issued the cheque may want to stop payment and a host of other technicalities which could pop up. Somehow, I got the impression from our conversation that he was not convinced of his own argument.
Thirty to 40 working days to clear a foreign cheque? Come on banks, there has to be something more to this. Morse code went out a long time ago, and even the teletype machines of the 1970s/1980s were much faster.
If there is a genuine reason for these transactions to be held up for such a lengthy time, I would like to hear it officially from Scotiabank, NCB and the others. Some believe that it is just a ploy to provide the local banks with an interest-free loan for a month. Some believe that there is another word for it.
Extortion.
I choose not to believe that until I hear an official word from the banks.
When will Jamaica decriminalise ganja?
Before the fundamentalist Christians attack me and say that I am introducing more sin to an island already deeply intertwined in too many crimes, social dysfunction and corruption at all levels, let me just say that I have long had a problem of what this country allows our people to legally ingest against what it outlaws.
We can walk into any bar and purchase liquor - very enjoyable in moderate amounts, extremely destructive after that. Cigarettes are available. Liquor and cigarettes are manufactured products and much evidence is available which points to the fact that some of the large manufacturers of cigarettes have, over many years, been adding excess nicotine - the addictive element in tobacco - to get smokers hooked.
Against all of that, a man plants a little ganja seed in a garden plot in his backyard. It grows and becomes a ganja plant. He harvests it, dries it and then later, he and some friends are seen in an inner-city lane kneading their 'hand-middles' to prepare spliffs for smoking.
A police vehicle drives up and takes them by surprise. They are scraped up and maybe taken to the Constant Spring Police Station where they are routinely assaulted: 'Yu tink sey mi nuh know sey onnu have gun? Whey di gun dem dey?!' Slap across the face, punch in the gut.
Later they are released and it doesn't necessarily mean that they will be arrested. The real sad part is that many of these boys actually expect to be beaten by the police. Meanwhile, in an uptown $50-million house, a businessman and his close friends are keeping a party. A few are smoking ganja. A police superintendent is also there.
Probably driven by the harshness of the economic climate some states are moving towards a pragmatic view on the weed. At the heart of it is decriminalising ganja in small amounts for personal use.
Mexico, long considered as one of the largest exporters of weed into the US has moved full speed ahead but with little fanfare. A quote from a Time online article dated August 26, 2009 titled "Mexico's New Drug Law" may set an example. It began, "No dreadlocked revellers smoked celebratory reefers in the streets, no armies of conservatives protested, the Mexican media raised no hullabaloo. Quietly and with little ado, Mexico last week enacted a law to decriminalise possession of small amounts of all major narcotics, including marijuana, cocaine, heroin, ecstasy and crystal meth. Anyone caught in Mexico with two or three joints or about four lines of cocaine can no longer be arrested, fined or imprisoned. However, police will give them the address of the nearest rehab clinic and advise them to get clean."
Now it is pretty much accepted that in an ideal world, none of us would need any drug, not even a prescription painkiller. But 'ideal' as a spot on the map does not exist on this planet. It is time we get real in this country and wake up to the fact that ganja use does not create a host of mad people running around and chopping up others.
My observations is that whenever it is used by minors, like liquor, it is very detrimental to their mental development. If it is decriminalised in Jamaica, strict laws on age must be applied. It is an adult drug, used for purposes of recreation and like cigarettes, its smoke should not be imposed on others.
Having said all of that it is now for us to ask our bosses in the IMF and in the US State Department if we can go ahead and move to enact the necessary laws in Jamaica.
Cashing in on the Bolt magic
If Usain Bolt has been really offered mega millions to play football in the US, I would expect that he would take the proposal to Puma, just silently place it on the desk of his contacts there and say, 'Just for your information.' Nothing more.
If Bolt was not already well remunerated by Puma - there must be a clause in his contract for hefty increases - this country could not pay him for placing us squarely on the world map, given one of the worst economic recessions ever seen.
After Beijing last year, the JLP government royally mucked it up. It was almost as if those in the Cabinet who should have had the good sense to engage their best brains in marketing simply sat back and basked in the glow of Bolt. Some government.
Will the same thing happen this time around? Before the prime minister announced that Sancia Bennett-Templer would be charged to develop a marketing strategy to position the country to cash in on Bolt, I had a meeting with a government minister.
I said to him, "You guys messed it up after the Olympics last year. Are you planning to do the same again this year?"
He smiled and I could see the embarrassment on his face. "Who is the minister in charge of leading off this great marketing blitz that will allow us to reap the full benefits of our athletic success this time around?" I asked.
"Babsy," he replied. I felt my upper body physically drooping. The sports and culture minister knew culture much more than sports, and in any event, the Ministry of Sports pretty much carried itself because of the knowledge, if not the management, of the sports administrators outside of the ministry. A lot of that mismanagement showed up in Berlin where it appeared that it was MVP calling the shots.
"OK," I said to him. "Does Babsy have a team of bright young people with networking skills who can build on the momentum and not let us lose this opportunity like how we have lost Reggae music and Blue Mountain to Japan?"
This time he visibly drooped as he replied, "No."
It seems that we may have to bring in foreigners to do the work for us. But lest I forget, there is Sancia Bennet-Templer. If she is the same Sancia Bennett whom I knew in the late 1970s - a most charming go-getter then - and if she has honed the marketing skills she had then, there is the likelihood that we could make a success of this.
The prime minister cannot leave this to chance. He is already overburdened trying to keep a straight face while mounting a credible argument as to why Transport Minister Mike Henry should have a whopping $60 million spent on refurbishing his state house. The prime minister has no argument there. He and the transport minister need to stand before this nation and apologise to us! Then find some other accommodation for the minister and his entitlements.
But I digress. The parish of Trelawny and Sherwood Content should be put on the world map. Geographical name changes should be announced soon. Sancia Bennet-Templer needs to realise that the only time she should take directions from the slow hand of politics is at the beginning. After that, the politicians should back off and allow her to work and formulate the needed marketing plans. Indeed, if the $60 million for Mike Henry's state house has not been disbursed, it should be diverted to this marketing plan.
Minister Mike Henry should consider taking up residence in the Transport Centre in Half-Way-Tree. In that way, it would be a guarantee that the toilets upstairs would work. Minister Henry should talk to Observer columnist Michael Burke.
Bolt's piece of Berlin Wall
A writer has suggested that Bolt should not have accepted that piece of the Berlin Wall given to him as a gift. Until I saw the letter in the newspaper I had not considered the implications of it. There is some merit in the fact that the wall represents repression and death... A whole lot of merit.
Added to this is the fact that the painting of Bolt's face on the slab of wall looks like a caricature of him. The painter very obviously is unfamiliar with Bolt.
Now, should be accept it? His hosts in Berlin meant well, I am sure, even though we know that in recent times a black politician in Germany has been coming under racist attacks simply because, well, he is black.
When a man presents you with a gift, he may do it because, in Bolt's case, he is simply the greatest sprinter of all time and the giver of the gift is overawed. Maybe not much thought was put into it. The other aspect of it is that the broken away slab represents the triumph over repression. I believe that the gift was given in that spirit.
I say Bolt should accept it, take it back to Sherwood Content, then immediately have Barrington Watson paint over the caricature of the face into the likeness of Usain Bolt.
After that, Bolt should present it to be put in a place of prominence, for example, at the Stadium in Trelawny which should be officially renamed. any guesses?
observemark@gmail.com
WIGNALL'S WORLD
Mark Wignall
Sunday, August 30, 2009
If a husband working in, say, New York sends his wife who is living in Jamaica a cheque for US$400 and she lodges it to her local account which has about J$200 in it, if she is lucky and knows someone at the local branch, she will be able to collect her funds in local currency immediately.
If she knows no one at the bank, it will take anywhere between 30 and 40 days after lodgement for the funds to clear and for her to collect it. If she lives in "Crab Hole" or deep rural Jamaica and needs those funds within a week of lodgement, what option is there that is available to her?
In truth, it would appear that most Jamaicans working in the US, Canada and Britain remit their funds to Jamaica through the usual remittance services like Western Union, which allows them to collect funds in Jamaican currency immediately. But it still does not satisfy the question of why Jamaican banks have to sit on these funds for so long.
One woman wrote to me recently, "Each time I encash a US$ cheque, by the third day my husband tells me that it hits his account. I was talking to someone recently who is a US citizen and she confirmed this also - that the US$ cheques that she encashed locally hits her account in less than a week - by the third day. I tried to get information from the banks but without success. Bank staff are adamant that the 30 or 40 days is the required time for the cheque to be cleared."
I must confess that I was under the impression that this was a matter that was solved at least 10 years ago. As I have no one sending me any money, and sadly so, I never gave it a second thought until I was contacted by the reader.
"We are in a technological age and I find it hard to believe that it would still take a month for the foreign currency items to be cleared. If the item(s) are cleared within three days, or the account is debited within that time, what happens to the amounts? Are these amounts held by the payee bank for the next couple of weeks? Or are the amounts held by clearing house pending receipt of the actual item which is sent by post? Or are the amounts held by the banks? Or is it still an inefficient system that is being used and to whose benefit?
"My husband believes that the banks here are making a 'killing', but I cannot believe that they would do such a thing."
When I spoke to a manager for one of our more respected banks, he entertained the conversation with the specific condition that he would remain anonymous. "It is something that we have been discussing for some time now and, to tell you the truth, I believe we can do much better than the 30 working days required."
He explained that the 30 days were supposed to cover not just the physical dispatching of the cheque to the issuing bank, but any other problems such as signature, the possibility that the person who issued the cheque may want to stop payment and a host of other technicalities which could pop up. Somehow, I got the impression from our conversation that he was not convinced of his own argument.
Thirty to 40 working days to clear a foreign cheque? Come on banks, there has to be something more to this. Morse code went out a long time ago, and even the teletype machines of the 1970s/1980s were much faster.
If there is a genuine reason for these transactions to be held up for such a lengthy time, I would like to hear it officially from Scotiabank, NCB and the others. Some believe that it is just a ploy to provide the local banks with an interest-free loan for a month. Some believe that there is another word for it.
Extortion.
I choose not to believe that until I hear an official word from the banks.
When will Jamaica decriminalise ganja?
Before the fundamentalist Christians attack me and say that I am introducing more sin to an island already deeply intertwined in too many crimes, social dysfunction and corruption at all levels, let me just say that I have long had a problem of what this country allows our people to legally ingest against what it outlaws.
We can walk into any bar and purchase liquor - very enjoyable in moderate amounts, extremely destructive after that. Cigarettes are available. Liquor and cigarettes are manufactured products and much evidence is available which points to the fact that some of the large manufacturers of cigarettes have, over many years, been adding excess nicotine - the addictive element in tobacco - to get smokers hooked.
Against all of that, a man plants a little ganja seed in a garden plot in his backyard. It grows and becomes a ganja plant. He harvests it, dries it and then later, he and some friends are seen in an inner-city lane kneading their 'hand-middles' to prepare spliffs for smoking.
A police vehicle drives up and takes them by surprise. They are scraped up and maybe taken to the Constant Spring Police Station where they are routinely assaulted: 'Yu tink sey mi nuh know sey onnu have gun? Whey di gun dem dey?!' Slap across the face, punch in the gut.
Later they are released and it doesn't necessarily mean that they will be arrested. The real sad part is that many of these boys actually expect to be beaten by the police. Meanwhile, in an uptown $50-million house, a businessman and his close friends are keeping a party. A few are smoking ganja. A police superintendent is also there.
Probably driven by the harshness of the economic climate some states are moving towards a pragmatic view on the weed. At the heart of it is decriminalising ganja in small amounts for personal use.
Mexico, long considered as one of the largest exporters of weed into the US has moved full speed ahead but with little fanfare. A quote from a Time online article dated August 26, 2009 titled "Mexico's New Drug Law" may set an example. It began, "No dreadlocked revellers smoked celebratory reefers in the streets, no armies of conservatives protested, the Mexican media raised no hullabaloo. Quietly and with little ado, Mexico last week enacted a law to decriminalise possession of small amounts of all major narcotics, including marijuana, cocaine, heroin, ecstasy and crystal meth. Anyone caught in Mexico with two or three joints or about four lines of cocaine can no longer be arrested, fined or imprisoned. However, police will give them the address of the nearest rehab clinic and advise them to get clean."
Now it is pretty much accepted that in an ideal world, none of us would need any drug, not even a prescription painkiller. But 'ideal' as a spot on the map does not exist on this planet. It is time we get real in this country and wake up to the fact that ganja use does not create a host of mad people running around and chopping up others.
My observations is that whenever it is used by minors, like liquor, it is very detrimental to their mental development. If it is decriminalised in Jamaica, strict laws on age must be applied. It is an adult drug, used for purposes of recreation and like cigarettes, its smoke should not be imposed on others.
Having said all of that it is now for us to ask our bosses in the IMF and in the US State Department if we can go ahead and move to enact the necessary laws in Jamaica.
Cashing in on the Bolt magic
If Usain Bolt has been really offered mega millions to play football in the US, I would expect that he would take the proposal to Puma, just silently place it on the desk of his contacts there and say, 'Just for your information.' Nothing more.
If Bolt was not already well remunerated by Puma - there must be a clause in his contract for hefty increases - this country could not pay him for placing us squarely on the world map, given one of the worst economic recessions ever seen.
After Beijing last year, the JLP government royally mucked it up. It was almost as if those in the Cabinet who should have had the good sense to engage their best brains in marketing simply sat back and basked in the glow of Bolt. Some government.
Will the same thing happen this time around? Before the prime minister announced that Sancia Bennett-Templer would be charged to develop a marketing strategy to position the country to cash in on Bolt, I had a meeting with a government minister.
I said to him, "You guys messed it up after the Olympics last year. Are you planning to do the same again this year?"
He smiled and I could see the embarrassment on his face. "Who is the minister in charge of leading off this great marketing blitz that will allow us to reap the full benefits of our athletic success this time around?" I asked.
"Babsy," he replied. I felt my upper body physically drooping. The sports and culture minister knew culture much more than sports, and in any event, the Ministry of Sports pretty much carried itself because of the knowledge, if not the management, of the sports administrators outside of the ministry. A lot of that mismanagement showed up in Berlin where it appeared that it was MVP calling the shots.
"OK," I said to him. "Does Babsy have a team of bright young people with networking skills who can build on the momentum and not let us lose this opportunity like how we have lost Reggae music and Blue Mountain to Japan?"
This time he visibly drooped as he replied, "No."
It seems that we may have to bring in foreigners to do the work for us. But lest I forget, there is Sancia Bennet-Templer. If she is the same Sancia Bennett whom I knew in the late 1970s - a most charming go-getter then - and if she has honed the marketing skills she had then, there is the likelihood that we could make a success of this.
The prime minister cannot leave this to chance. He is already overburdened trying to keep a straight face while mounting a credible argument as to why Transport Minister Mike Henry should have a whopping $60 million spent on refurbishing his state house. The prime minister has no argument there. He and the transport minister need to stand before this nation and apologise to us! Then find some other accommodation for the minister and his entitlements.
But I digress. The parish of Trelawny and Sherwood Content should be put on the world map. Geographical name changes should be announced soon. Sancia Bennet-Templer needs to realise that the only time she should take directions from the slow hand of politics is at the beginning. After that, the politicians should back off and allow her to work and formulate the needed marketing plans. Indeed, if the $60 million for Mike Henry's state house has not been disbursed, it should be diverted to this marketing plan.
Minister Mike Henry should consider taking up residence in the Transport Centre in Half-Way-Tree. In that way, it would be a guarantee that the toilets upstairs would work. Minister Henry should talk to Observer columnist Michael Burke.
Bolt's piece of Berlin Wall
A writer has suggested that Bolt should not have accepted that piece of the Berlin Wall given to him as a gift. Until I saw the letter in the newspaper I had not considered the implications of it. There is some merit in the fact that the wall represents repression and death... A whole lot of merit.
Added to this is the fact that the painting of Bolt's face on the slab of wall looks like a caricature of him. The painter very obviously is unfamiliar with Bolt.
Now, should be accept it? His hosts in Berlin meant well, I am sure, even though we know that in recent times a black politician in Germany has been coming under racist attacks simply because, well, he is black.
When a man presents you with a gift, he may do it because, in Bolt's case, he is simply the greatest sprinter of all time and the giver of the gift is overawed. Maybe not much thought was put into it. The other aspect of it is that the broken away slab represents the triumph over repression. I believe that the gift was given in that spirit.
I say Bolt should accept it, take it back to Sherwood Content, then immediately have Barrington Watson paint over the caricature of the face into the likeness of Usain Bolt.
After that, Bolt should present it to be put in a place of prominence, for example, at the Stadium in Trelawny which should be officially renamed. any guesses?
observemark@gmail.com
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