Discovery Bank? A no from me!

Discovery Bank has joined the ranks of inefficient and ineffective service providers in South Africa's ailing banking system. Proof of this is in this series of interactions that I have been having with Discovery Bank since my FNB-account linked credit card was summarily (and without any discussion with me) transferred to Discovery Bank. Upon registering on their website, I updated my details, including a new email address. A day later I got a call from a Discovery Bank agent who could not cite the updated details #becausethesystem. Today I called their call centre. I had to wait 3 minutes (and suffer through the ads that are pushed to clients without their consent and at their expense #airtimecostsafortuneinSA) to speak with a call centre agent who told me that she was going to send information to my email address. A) Why she couldn't send it via SMS (given that she had already managed to push a verification SMS to me during the call without the call being dropped - really impressive for a banking service provider these days) and B) Why she still had a very outdated email address on her system (one which I had stopped using in 2008, and one I cannot imagine that Discovery have been using as they always sent information to my gmail address) is truly beyond me. Nonetheless, I eventually (+1 hour later) got an email from Discovery Bank telling me how I can pay my account (which an SMS this morning told me is due today and which I must pay today to avoid penalties and blocking of my account). I went onto their website (which took at least 2 minutes to load!) and discovered that there are two payment options: 1. I can pay from my bank account directly by logging into my bank's website (I no longer have access to cellphone banking and do not have access to my bank's application - another story of inefficiency and ineffectiveness that I will save for another time) and 2. I can set up a debit order. I chose to edit the existing debit order and wished to set the payment date on that debit order for today. Unfortunately, Discovery Bank's website does not allow one to change the date of the debit order. So I called their call centre again. I again had to suffer through the voiceover adverti*****ts with the odd prompt to hit the correct numbers, before I was finally transferred to Tsego. Tsego repeated his "Discovery-issued greeting" 4 times while I asked if he could hear me. Given that I know from call #1 (***) with an agent called Wendy that once you've punched in your ID no (which you are asked to do in the first minute of your call to Discovery Bank) the agent can see who is calling, it is alarming for me that Tsego has not phoned me back yet. Of course, I am now wondering how I will make the payment to Discovery Bank today to avoid the penalties and the blocking of my account. Because one thing that South African banks and other service providers do very well is impose penalties. Their efficiency in collecting moneys (whether or not they are legally owed same) and the self-enriching effectiveness by means of which they do so is perhaps unparalleled globally. As a new client to Discovery Bank, I am unimpressed with their service. I will find a way to pay them and continue my search for a bank that foregrounds customer service and treats their clients as they equals they truly are: both in law and in ethics. #DiscoveryBankUpYourGame