MSE News: An anatomy of banks: When Martin Lewis met Barclays

Former_MSE_Helen · 19 August 2013 at 4:39PM

"Did two Barclays top bods convince Martin Lewis the 'go-to' bank really has consumers at its front and centre?..."

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An anatomy of banks: When Martin Lewis met Barclays

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JuicyJesus · 19 August 2013 at 5:26PM

A poor article really. Lots of vague guff and the (p*ss-poor) suggestion of a single member of staff regarding a credit card debt being the only actual evidence - if you can even call it that - held up as to whether or not Barclays has changed at all. We're told that and then the article ends.

MSE_Martin · 19 August 2013 at 5:48PM

JuicyJesus wrote: »

A poor article really. Lots of vague guff and the (p*ss-poor) suggestion of a single member of staff regarding a credit card debt being the only actual evidence - if you can even call it that - held up as to whether or not Barclays has changed at all. We're told that and then the article ends.

The point of the article is to hear Barclay's spiel about what it believes its doing. That is as you rightly point out not enough to draw a conclusion from.

Yet you seem to miss the point of this discussion link. The article is about what Barclays has to say (and my view of it) the discussion is to see people's recent experiences of Barclays to hear if their spin lives up to reality. That's why the article draws no conclusion - that wasn't its purpose.

dalesrider · 19 August 2013 at 6:04PM

What top management and what get says lower down the chain can be totally different....

Both even admitted some local managers are defying the Barclays promise and continuing to set sales targets for staff to meet at individual branches

So why are these managers still in a job then... As they are clearly failing to follow the lead of upper management.

So given the tops wish to stop this they are not doing anything. While knowing their directives are not being carried out.

Hollow and pointless words by people who are just paying lip service to what the customers would like to see.... And what the onwardsman requested banks do.

rb10 · 19 August 2013 at 6:40PM

MSE_Martin wrote: »

The point of the article is to hear Barclay's spiel about what it believes its doing. That is as you rightly point out not enough to draw a conclusion from.

I think JuicyJesus's comment comes from the fact that the article doesn't seem clear on what it's trying to say.

You introduce the article as saying that Martin "called into its Hammersmith branch to put customer service to the test, and see if Barclays really was a different beast with sales incentives a distant memory. But how did it fare?". From the opening paragraph, this appeared to be the purpose of the article.

But then you didn't mention 'putting customer service to the test' at all until the weak example at the end.

And what does mobile banking have to do with the article's title "Can Barclays persuade Martin its staff don't sell anymore?"?

I just have no idea what the aim of that article was, unless it was a (paid?) sales pitch from Barclays.

Then there's the comment that "If this is the only bank in the marketplace that is not incentivising its staff...". Well, it's not the only one. Nationwide (ok, they are a building society, not a bank) doesn't incentivise its branch staff based on sales performance.

pmduk · 19 August 2013 at 6:55PM

It would have taken a lot less effort to just print a press release. There appear to have been few attempts to challenge Barclays on what is actually happening, rather than what their media people want us to believe is happening.

It doesn't read as a journalist's piece of work. When will a journalist point out that most of the misselling occurred whilst Antony Jenkins was running retail banking, so why should we expect any different now he's running the whole shebang?

pmduk · 19 August 2013 at 7:00PM

rb10 wrote: »

Nationwide (ok, they are a building society, not a bank) doesn't incentivise its branch staff based on sales performance.

Pressure on staff to sell doesn't only come from staff incentivization. A more insidious method is to require a branch to meet sales targets, particularly at a time when an organisation is known to be closing branches.

caper7 · 19 August 2013 at 7:04PM

I recently called Barclays to transfer some money.
Once they had completed that task they tried to talk to me about house insurance.
This is not the first time this has happened either.

JuicyJesus · 19 August 2013 at 7:15PM

rb10 wrote: »

I think JuicyJesus's comment comes from the fact that the article doesn't seem clear on what it's trying to say.

You introduce the article as saying that Martin "called into its Hammersmith branch to put customer service to the test, and see if Barclays really was a different beast with sales incentives a distant memory. But how did it fare?". From the opening paragraph, this appeared to be the purpose of the article.

But then you didn't mention 'putting customer service to the test' at all until the weak example at the end.

Precisely my point. Most of it appeared to be Barclays management's own words, followed by the aforementioned weak example. A conclusion was to be expected, especially given the title of the article, but there wasn't one.

For what it's worth, I'm happy with Barclays and have never had an issue with them. I also have no issue with banks cross-selling to existing customers so long as it is done fairly and honestly.

Then there's the comment that "If this is the only bank in the marketplace that is not incentivising its staff...". Well, it's not the only one. Nationwide (ok, they are a building society, not a bank) doesn't incentivise its branch staff based on sales performance.

Neither do the Co-op, or HSBC. So that's four banks/institutions, but only one gets an article.

chudiver · 19 August 2013 at 7:19PM

dalesrider wrote: »

So why are these managers still in a job then... As they are clearly failing to follow the lead of upper management.

Title inflation in financial services can imply that people are more senior than they really are.

Garry_Anderson · 19 August 2013 at 7:34PM

Quote: Having both joined Barclays straight from school at 16, it's undeniable that Davis, and Steven Cooper, the head of personal and business banking, have both lived through various bank mis-selling scandals in all their ugly glory.

It is a fact that this criminal behaviour is still ongoing.

I asked Mr Jenkins (CEO) this June why my wife and I had not been defrauded - the fraud was ongoing and they were still profiting from it.

Mr Jenkins covered it up by instead getting Mr Spillane to look into the handling of the case. Needless to say Mr Spillane was somewhat selective in his investigation e.g. ignoring their evasion and refusal from the beginning to answer our complaint.

I won an official complaint for 'lack of integrity' against the corrupt FSA for their handling - what use are authorities without integrity.

The FOS did exactly the same as Barclays - they falsified our complaint and removed mention of the word fraud.

The FOS also ignored Barclays obfiscation, delay and the fact they never answering the complaint - indeed never repeated the f word (fraud).

MSE News: An anatomy of banks: When Martin Lewis met Barclays

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