BCR to eliminate 250 staff as earnings plummet

I started out banking at BCR almost 9 years, and while I like many of the staff (very friendly), I have also had 9 years of frustration.

Yes, BCR closed one of my accounts, I assume because it was judged inactive, but it also did so right after I paid the annual account fee. Not nice. However, early on it annoyed me by being routinely late in transferring the monthly amounts from my rentista account into my regular account, a tardiness that struck me as borderline criminal and I believe would be criminal in the US. It also paid me disgustingly low interest on my rentista account, basically telling me “take it or leave it,” and since I had to have the account for residency, I was forced to take it. Later, and the straw that broke this camel’s back, after inquiring about a credit card I was told that among the mountains of paperwork I would need was a statement from a CPA. I actually got the statement ($60) only to have the clerk reject it on the grounds that it wasn’t addressed specifically to BCR. What? They demand that a CPA statement be addressed specifically to them? And if this was a requirement, why didn’t the clerk tell me that before I wasted $60 on the CPA statement?

Anyway, after a long series of frustrations dealing with BCR, I walked across the street and opened accounts with Scotiabank. Unfortunately, while I find the staff at Scotiabank quite friendly too, I can’t recommend it either. It’s a bit devious–not even informing me of the outrageous interest rate on the credit card it issued to me, even after I asked for a document showing the “fine print”–and almost as bad as BCR when it comes to loose cannon clerks. Scotiabank was the only place that has ever challenged my signature. What do you do when you show up with your ID and bank stuff only to have the clerk tell you that she doesn’t trust your signature? In my case, I asked if the clerk had any training in handwriting analysis. No. But she compromised by allowing me to practice signing until my signature looked like she wanted it to look. I spent a half hour in Scotiabank repeatedly trying to make my signature look like my signature. It felt like kindergarten.

I therefore don’t have a solution, although for me having accounts at two different banks helps a little. Sometimes one of the banks is worse than the other on a given issue, so I can use the bank that is the least frustrating. Truthfully, of late I’ve mostly used Scotiabank, and suspect I do think it’s a little better on most things than BCR, but I wouldn’t like to have to rely on Scotiabank alone either.

As mentioned, my impression is that banks in Costa Rica are pretty much an oligopoly. Actually, anymore this may be true in the US and other countries as well. However, it’s more true of Costa Rica. They seem all to follow a similar business model.

The Banco Nacional employees’ union took a different approach, agreeing to a wages and benefits roll-back a few weeks ago. The BCR employees’ union refused to do likewise. I wonder if the result would have been the same if the BCR employees’ union had agreed to such a roll-back as well? I haven’t heard of BN making any similar drastic employee cuts. It would appear that the BN employees’ union is the more responsible Public Sector Union in the Country at the moment, given the current economic circumstances.

Indeed. In fact, the bank even stated itself in a financial statement that the “average” base salary of these unnecessary and/or redundant employees set to be eliminated was 2.5 million colones per month, not including aguinaldo, mandatory benefits, employer pension contributions, etc. so I would venture to guess that their savings estimate was based just on actual payroll savings, and their overall savings will actually be higher.