By DIANE PHILLIPS

A friend Whatsapped me a notice she had received from her bank this week, an informative graph of fee increases. The notice came from one of the Canadian-based financial institutions that must be making a good profit in The Bahamas off big business, substantial loans with substantial interest over a significant length of time. Big money. Loans that allow businesses to grow, infrastructural improvements to be made, commerce to flourish. All an integral part of building and boosting the Bahamian economy.

That’s one side of the business model. The other is the small guy, or fees, interest and incidental charges collected from small guys, like the kind who feel a sense of pride because they have a savings account. Maybe they still carry that old-fashioned savings book around with them for a sense of security, acknowledgement that they are part of the privileged banked world. Of course, that account in which they take such pride, stopped paying interest of any noticeable percentage years ago, but still having it stood for something, a rite of passage, safety net. And then came the fees. The banks that can lend millions to those who have millions began charging fees to maintain a savings account. The little guy account, a few dollars every month. Then came the unthinkable, almost unconscionable, introduction of fees to deposit money into your own savings account, And this week’s notice of an increase in fees advised that the fee to deposit money into your own account would be $3.30 and the monthly service fee to maintain that account would be another $3.30. Six dollars and 60 cents every month if you only made one deposit that month, more if you make multiple deposits.

All of which motivated me – once i got over the rage of insensitivity – to look into the subject of savings, recalling that every few years someone in the financial sector reminds us of what a poor savings culture we have.

Bufferless Bottom

Small fees would not matter much if we did not live so close to the edge. One expert source told me that the average Bahamian has less than $500 in savings, We are not alone in this. the US and Canada are not in much better shape.

Americans top the chart with a median amount of about $8,000 in savings, Canadians roll in with an average of $5,432. Considering the cost of living, those are all pretty scary figures, especially for Bahamians. The buffer between financially comfortable and flat broke and penniless is far too fragile.

It’s even more frightening for the future of The Bahamas where the cultural reality is a disconnect between what we have and what we spend. We spend more than we earn. The same bank that charges you to save entices you to borrow. Some banks that pay less than one percent on savings charge 18 percent on personal loans or credit card fees. They are perfectly happy to advance funds for a vacation you cannot afford so long as the loan can be guaranteed through payroll deduction. And what family can resist the temptation to take the children to Disney World with a side trip to Walmart when, after all, they’ve been working hard all year and before you know it, summer will be over, and the kids will be back in school for another year? Pack the bags and the debt, hop a plane, worry about how to pay for it all later.

So easy to borrow and live above your means. So easy and so dangerous for the truth is most Bahamians are only steps away from poverty, living pay check to pay check, hand to mouth. One bout of illness that causes a mother, father or other guardian to miss work for a single week could jeopardise their ability to put food on the table.

Just ask the Bahamas Feeding Network why the need to feed remains so great two years after the worst of the COVID epidemic passed. Any expectation that the level of hunger would subside when people returned to work was quickly dashed. for the unemployed or underemployed, there was a year of debt to catch up on, back rent to pay, family loans to repay, new shoes and clothes to buy for young ones who had been squeezing into too-tight jeans and tennis while Mommy or daddy was out of work. Some jobs never came back full-time. Half the working population was on catch-up time.

Rough out there

It’s rough out there. A lot of people are hurting. Analysts are concerned about the erosion of the middle class, the sector of society where hope lives, where parents believe their children will do better than they did, where the plan for college is more than a dream, it’s a promise for the teen who wants a higher education. Without a strong middle class, separation between the haves and have-nots increases, resentment grows, turning at some point into anger and eventually, when anger overpowers hope, revolutionary ideas emerge.

We do not need to go in that direction. It is not too late to reverse the pattern of discouraging saving by growing the culture of saving. The same bank that raised its fees for depositing money into your own account can be the best partner, providing an incentive for those who grow their accounts instead of penalising them for doing so. In the end, they will be doing their part to protect an endangered middle class and ensure their own well-being. You don’t heal a sore by picking at it, you find a salve that soothes. When big banks take small guys seriously, both sides win.

Help solve the Peacemaker mystery and clear potential danger in waiting

SHE first appeared off dick’s Point in eastern new Providence in mid-June, this two-masted schooner named Peacemaker. What a fine vessel she must have been in her day. But that day has passed and now she sits as a threat to safe passage in Montagu Bay. When she dragged anchor during a high wind, BASrA towed her out. it is safe to assume that having been abandoned, she does not have working batteries, meaning no operating bilge pumps and thus, a strong likelihood of sinking. A hurricane would surely drive her into shore or toss her about and break her up in the bay. Whatever the outcome, it would pose a danger to navigation and possibly to homes along the shoreline. If this is a matter for the Port department, what does it take to urge attention before an accident occurs?