It's just like a real bank!

We got a home loan through a building society thirteen years ago. We had no other accounts with them. In 2002, we changed our regular banking to a credit union. Fast forward to a couple years ago and the credit union and building society merged which made our financial needs very convenient. Last year the Bank of Queensland and our building society decided to merge. The merger went through a couple weeks ago although their systems are still separate. The first bad news was that they were rebranding our building society as Bank of Queensland. We live in Western Australia. Not really all that appealing to me.

A couple weeks ago, we got a letter advising that the branch located conveniently within the big shopping centre in a nearby suburb was closing and they would be moving into the BOQ branch that was located near the shopping centre. The letter told us how much more convenient it would be to do our banking at the new location. It said we would have good parking facilities and better customer service.

The Scientist and I went there today to make and adjustment on our home and contents insurance which we had taken our through the building society/credit union. There was hardly any parking available…I will add that I went through the parking lot last week and found it much the same. We did find a spot but it’s pretty likely we may have to park across at the big shopping centre and walk across. Not a biggie for us but not so great for those with limited mobility and transportation options.

We walked inside and were immediately amazed at how it looked so much like a bank. At the credit union and the building society, the staff were mostly friendly and the counters were just that with no barriers. It was very personal. Here, they had glass at the counters and scary security warnings, etc. I guess that’s a “bank” thing but I believe the security was just fine at the previous location.

There was a huge queue of people waiting to be served for the building society. The office is a bit bigger but there were lots more people than I had ever seen before. While waiting to be served, we overheard another teller discussing with a customer that the BOQ closes at 4pm, unlike the building society that closed at 5pm. So far, I am not seeing any benefits.

Apparently we really are part of a regular bank now. The Scientist and I agreed that it would not be surprising if we found ourselves looking for a different financial institution in the next year or so.