I’ve read a few updates on Facebook lately and people everywhere are complaining about the weather, so I’m not going to. I’ll just say that spring is on the way and leave it at that.
I got an envelope in the mail yesterday from HSBC (that’s Hong Kong Shanghai Banking Corp for those of you non-bankers in the crowd – Canadian head office is here in Vancouver). Inside the envelope I found a cheque – everyone likes to find a cheque in an envelope especially an unexpected one. This cheque, however, was for nine cents. Yes, you heard me. Nine cents.
Now, having spent the better part of my adult life in the banking industry, I have a fairly good idea as to what it costs to issue a cheque. 200 business cheques cost approximately $100 to print. in other words, each cheque costs $.50. Then someone had to go through the process of telling the system that HSBC owed me nine cents. This probably took 10 to 15 minutes of some employee’s time. Add on another five dollars for that. The cheque was printed, inserted into an envelope (all automated, of course), and then fired off to the post office where another $.54 cost was incurred. The bank will then charge the business account another $.35 or so to process this cheque, not to mention the labor costs to clear this cheque with my bank after I deposit it. At the end of it all it will have cost around $10 to process a nine cent cheque. Explained the logic in that. HSBC could’ve kept their nine cents. Maybe I’ll just save everyone a lot of money and keep the cheque to look at when I feel like having a good laugh.
Believe it or not, there is no sermon here today.
Have a good one!
Inside the Writer 