It is not uncommon to see people on social media complaining about banking in this country, whether it be long lines, bank fees or some other perceived shortcoming with respect to customer service.
Trevor Hosten, 66, however, wants people to get off social media and put their money where their mouths are.
“People get the banks that they deserve and the reason our banking sector is the way it is is because Trinidadians are too complacent and the banks are taking their complacency for acceptance. When people vent their frustrations on social media that is just a temporary hype,” Hosten said.
“If they were to protest, if they were to voice their opposition, if they were to withdraw their pivotal deposits from the banks they would see changes coming about.
“How long would you sit and let the big banks unfairly take money from your pocket to put into theirs to promote their hubris and their arrogance. How long will you do that for? Wake up, do something, protest it, withdraw your money, put a run on the bank that is the only way.”
Hosten is not all talk.
He is the head of a consumer advocacy organisation named the Public Interest Research Group (PIRG), the local branch of an United States’ group that seeks to right wrongs done against clients of banks.
PIRG was established locally in 2001 and Hosten virtually waged a one-man battle against banks in this country for at least a decade after its formation.
‘Local banks
do more hurt’
Hosten said local banks do more to hurt rather than promote this country’s economy as highlighted in an article in TIME Magazine entitled “Predators in Paradise” which focused on banks in the Caribbean.
So Hosten started a media blitz to warn people about banks.
“It personally costed me around $1.3 million to wage war against the banks with placing advertisements in the newspaper and paying for billboards around the country,” he said.
PIRG went silent for a while with respect to its advertising, but Hosten said the group is making a comeback as it is “very necessary right now”.
It is in the “national interest” Hosten believes and he is willing to sell a property to help fund the battle.
PIRG has already devised an advertising campaign to get their message across, he said.
“I am ready to lead the charge. I am selling one of my properties just to finance PIRG and bring it back because the time is necessary. This now is in the national interest.”
Hosten, however, hopes that other citizens will join him.
“We are coming back with a solid advertising campaign. I think it is necessary now to do some demonstrations in front the bank. We need to do that, but I’m not sure if people will come out and take up a placard and say what they need to say about the banks ,” he said.
‘Nobody listened to us’
Hosten said some of the things that PIRG predicted are now sadly coming to pass.
“Everything we have predicted nobody listened to us and now we have seen it come to pass and much worse because the banks’ profits are outrageous, the lines are excessively long and quite frankly, they don’t business,” he said.
“It kind of hurts that people have not really listened to us. I think there are Trinidadians who are more reactive than proactive.”
Hosten’s battle with this country’s banks started when he and one of the commercial banks had a falling out over the way they handled one of his accounts. He was the owner of Trevor Hosten Interior Designs.
“I had some problems with the bank. I wrote them and told them what I thought about them and within a couple of hours my account was shut down,” he said.
“That was a very humiliating and embarrassing process for me. I was a normal person going about my normal business in the business world and I had a problem but unlike most people when the bank screws them, I did something about it. I gave them an unprecedented run for their money by making the public aware. I formed a consumer group called PIRG and we went on an education drive that has changed the course of things,” Hosten said.
He said banks locally seem not to care about the regular customers.
“In the United States I could walk into the bank and talk to the manager right there, the manger is not locked behind closed doors, with security guards and secretary, those are colonial trappings, we don’t need that, that gives them the power to feel that they are more than they are and, therefore, based on that they are not focusing on the customer,” he said.
Hosten said banks could do more in this country to help address the major issues affecting us.
“There is no community banking where a bank will open up in a place like Maloney and develop the individuals and the community and help them become independent, help keep them away from crime because they have a banker who will understand them and give them guidance,” Hosten said.
While Hosten has gauged that the public are upset with banks and their fees, managing director of Republic Bank Ltd (RBL) Nigel Baptiste told a Joint Select Committee of Parliament that he was unaware of any anger or animosity harboured by the public as a result of banking fees.
Baptiste said bank fees do not contribute significantly to the bank’s profits.
Baptiste said based on bi-annual surveys conducted by RBL the customer-?satisfaction rating of the bank was more than five out of six.
