Israel Postal Bank customers’ money ‘in danger’

An official source at the Israel Postal Bank has warned that customers’ money is in “real danger” as there is no oversight unit and no one to monitor accounts for unusual transactions, the Walla website has reported.

The Postal Bank is regarded as a social bank giving customers the ability to manage small bank accounts without strict restrictions and with a low interest rate compared with other banks, said Arab 48 news.

Last week, the Israeli state-owned Postal Company announced that the bank will start collecting commissions for banking services that used to be free or offered at a very low fee. The company said that this is part of a recovery plan for the bank, although not all of the plan has been revealed.

Around 600,000 customers do not know that in recent months their money has not been subject to the standard monitoring that all financial institutions are required to provide, because the number of employees who are supposed to take care of clients’ accounts has fallen by two-thirds. Moreover, the bank’s computing system and customer service have been integrated into the Postal Company’s system.

A number of clients have complained of long wait times for e-mail enquiries to be answered, and that the bank’s telephone responses are not professional.

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