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Banks are handing out bonuses to staff who upsize your debt
October 2011
BANK staff are being offered Christmas party bonuses, free meals and other prizes to push more credit cards, loans, insurance policies and other products to customers.
Australia’s biggest lender – the CBA – has launched a “double up” campaign to push personal bankers and tellers into selling twice as many products, such as increasing credit limits, each week.
The other three major banks – the NAB, ANZ and Westpac – are also forcing branch staff to meet stringent weekly sales targets as the “big four” battle for market share.
An internal CBA document obtained by The Sunday Telegraph reveals the pre-Christmas push to supersize customers – increase their credit limits, convince them to take out home and contents policies
and open up new accounts.
“We are under increasing pressure from competitors who are looking for a greater share of our retail banking business,” CBA retail banking boss Ross McEwan says in the document.
The briefing reads: “The campaign encourages sales teams to double their sales productivity during October and November to earn double the fun (and funds) at their end of year team celebrations.”
Staff at the four major banks, which are expected to record a combined profit of $24.2bn this financial year, have also revealed the tactics used to win over customers.
Sales targets differ depending on the branch size and location. Convincing a customer to roll their
credit card debt into their mortgage is a target winner.
At Westpac, each personal banker has a revenue target of about $3750 a week.
Selling a credit card earns $150 towards that goal. At NAB, a city branch with four staff would have to sell 72
products a week, while a teller has to make 10 “quality” referrals to personal bankers that result in a sale.
Personal bankers have to sell 13-16 items. Debt products are worth the most because they are more lucrative for
the bank.
All banks encourage staff to “cross sell” so when a customer opens a savings account, staff are likely to offer an
increased credit card limit or income protection insurance.
“Staff get really desperate, to the point where they will convince customers they need something when they really don’t,” a Westpac staffer said.
Even more telling, the small inset story accompanying this article, in the paper’s print version:
Bank staff say their targets are so high and unrealistic they are selling customers products they don’t need or can’t afford.
Staff from Commonwealth, Westpac, ANZ and NAB describe work as a pressure cooker and say they are forced to meet stringent targets – a claim all four banks categorically deny.
Workers say white boards are used in branches to track sales.
“We don’t want to be pushing debt on to people but you have the pressure of your job security hinging on it,” a CBA staffer told The Sunday Telegraph.
“A home loan is a life long debt. We shouldn’t be selling it like a box of crackers.”
After three years as a CBA teller, the “cut-throat” environment became too much for 20-year-old Tyson Adams.
“The whole time your target is being pushed on you really hard and it is never negotiable … it doesn’t even matter if you are off sick, you have to make it up.”
An NAB worker said” “It is not about whether you are great with the customers; at the end of the day it is how much you have either referred or you have sold.”
A Westpac banker said: “They give us lists of customers who have almost paid out their
home loans so we have to call them and get them to borrow more, go get an investment
property or something.”……..
UPDATE:
Paying down (y)our debt, and refusing to take out more, is the fastest way to kill the Beast. Most people don’t even realise that the simple act of paying down debt (and not taking out more) reduces the banks’ “assets” on their balance sheet. Eventually, all they have is Liabilities (your actual savings, plus outgoing interest payments owed to you on your savings) … and no Assets.