| Maltese Banks - What a disgrace
Long ago when I was in the UK and several other countries around Europe I was introduced
to the Cheque Guarantee Card without which you cannot write a cheque for goods in
any retail store, restaurant, hotel etc
These have been in common use for decades in the rest of the world and basically the Bank
is providing a guarantee upto a certain value for a cheque. It cannot be sent
back unpaid and therefore the "trader is paid" and if there are insufficient funds
in the account it is between the Bank and its customer.
This is how it should be - the Bank issued the Cheque Book to its customer so the bank has
to take responsibility for its actions.
However as we are in Malta the banks decided to increase their profits by putting the
burden onto the "traders"
so when a cheque is unpaid the bank earns a fee and the trader loses his money.
The only way to resolve this issue is for All retail outlets to refuse Cheques from Bank
of Valletta, HSBC (they should know better, they operate worldwide), APS and Lombard Bank
Only then, when customers realise they cannot write a cheque anywhere as the cheque has no commercial value on the high street
will the banks have to back down on this and issue cheque guarantee cards to people who have the funds to honor their cheques
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