Stupid is as stupid does.

This is a shot across the bow for ABSA. It is not a rebuke but a warning: Do not make the cardinal mistake of assuming that your client, the users of your mobile application, is intellectually challenged, primed to be fleeced by the geniuses behind recent unwelcome adjustments to the user interface of your smartphone banking app.

I have been banking with ABSA since the days of its amalgamation, yes, I am that old. Something very disturbing had occurred recently on your smartphone banking app. Something that had given me serious pause. A pause of such gravity that I found myself weighing up alternative banking options. I was rather taken aback by the audacity, the brash nerve, that your bank evidenced as it attempted to herd me towards an action that would garner extra profit for your bank.

This was done without consideration for my convenience, which I do believe the app was created for to facilitate. You seem to have gotten your income pillars confused with the service that should be foundational to your brand. I am not offended or surprised by the aspiration of a bank towards accumulating money, that is what banks do after all. I am offended by the bargain ba*****t marketing level psychology you employed to do so, at my expense.

That concludes the arrogant diatribe that was my intro. Did you, the reader, enjoy working your way through that verbose mire of words? Did you enjoy having your time wasted and yourself assumed to be the lesser intellect? Well, that is exactly what ABSA’s devious little app did to me. Here is what happened, presented in an easily digestible step by step succession.

STEP 1: I open my ABSA Banking app. STEP 2: I make a payment to a beneficiary. STEP 3: The APP automatically selects "Immediate Payment", something it never used to do and something you only notice when you scroll down. STEP 4: I make the payment thinking it defaulted to the standard option of scheduled payment, as had been the norm. STEP 5: At this stage the app warns me that extra costs will be incurred with immediate payment. STEP 6: I duly revise my actions and select the alternative delayed (cheaper) payment option. STEP 7: I make the payment. STEP 8: I check my balance, and the payment does not reflect there. This had not happened in the past. Before I had made the same payment and the deductions immediately reflected on my balance. Now my balance remained unchanged leaving me wondering if the payment had been made. What a conundrum. STEP 9: With no idea where locate this mysterious scheduled payment I had made I resorted to asking the apps’ chat bot to "Show me scheduled payments". Miraculously it gave me a list of instructions directing me to the online portal, which it informs me is the only location where I can observe this elusive scheduled payment I had the misfortune of making. STEP 10: For the first time in months I forced to access my online portal on my laptop and find the payment shown there, hidden away behind layers of carefully curated inconvenience.

To most this might seem like first world problems but understand that all this nonsense and irritation came about because some bright spark thought it would be really clever to strong arm immediate payment and render scheduled payment as inconvenient as possible.

Clearly this is a blatant manipulation towards affecting user behavior and driving those profitable immediate payment engagements up. Higher numbers might look yummy on graphs and pie charts presented to elite investors wringing their hands in gleeful appreciation of the genius of such a stunt, but to me, little old regular Joe, it seems a bit predatory. It reveals a ruthless profiteering culture gestating within ABSA, a bank that should be focused on cultivating trust first, since banking is all about trust. Everything else is secondary.

This is why I invite ABSA to revisit their user interface regarding beneficiary payments and default all beneficiary payments to scheduled and SHOW THAT DEDUCTION on the user’s balance immediately, as had been your practice in the past. Also, never direct a user to another site, even if that site is yours.

If ABSA cannot do this, this little fish will have to swim for less predatory waters. I implore ABSA not to allow the thrashing of the profiteering predators within its organization to churn the waters of my proffered bank to such an extent that a poor little fish like me struggles to make the simplest of transactions without being harassed and lacerated for a few more drops of profit. ABSA, you are eroding your brand. You can spend millions on marketing, PR and advertising and none of those channels will even come close to gaining you what integrity and the endearment of trust with your clients will do for your market share.

As a side note, I did try to post this communication on the ABSA online site first that enter button just did not want to do what it was created to do. Is there are pattern emerging?

Stop it ABSA. You can do better.