FNB Business Banker Lack of Intent Back-fires on Customer & Fellow Work Colleagues

FNB Business Banker Uselessness – A Tale of Polar Opposites

I requested that my business accounts with FNB be closed. The last day of business is 30th April this year. A simple request. Request submitted with time to spare, previous experience being that advice of this nature, this is not always handled with the definitiveness & sense of urgency one requires. Resulting in customers being milked of fees by banks after they intended. Advised by email on 5 May ’25 that the account number (not account numbers, as I had requested) ending …. had been closed as per request. What I had specifically set out to avoid, had become a reality – only part of my request had been implemented – not all accounts had been closed! Why would I want to keep the business credit card account open, while closing the current account from which I funded the credit card? Business bankers first oversight. Business banker then requested to please confirm that the successful closing of the account incorporated the closing of both the current account and the business credit card account for the business. After numerous folup’s business banker advised on 13th May that the business credit card division had advised that there was an outstanding balance on the business credit card which needed to be settled before the account could be closed. Again, this is precisely what I wanted to prevent, and having provided my business banker with lead-time, I expected them to run with the closure requests, delivering on whatever was required to ensure that all accounts were closed on 30th April. From what transpired, this was clearly too big an ask – my expectations being unfair, with the requests possibly being outside of the banker’s field of responsibility or too difficult and complicated. Maybe they required specialised skills, as the banking consultant clearly chose to drop the ball and leave the customer to do the hard yards. Despite my inviting the consultant to please call me directly via text and email messages, they had gone underground as neither I nor any of the FNB Point of Presence teams I dealt with were ever contacted by the banker in question.

My positive shout-out in all of this must go to the front-line teams at a few FNB branches, but notably to the Garden Route Mall team in George. Under the leadership of Daniswa Nteyi, both she and Sales & Service Consultant, Melford Cupido, went through a long and drawn-out process, which resulted in me finally being advised on 25th July that my business credit card account had been closed.

All quite embarrassing but expected from a too-big-to-fail type organisation operating more and more with an ivory tower organisational structure. The way one employee dropped so many of their internal customers, let alone a customer, certainly has operational implications ito the bigger picture. The amount of productive time, effort, and currency wasted by all parties in obtaining closure is a disgrace. Such a simple request, imagine the outcomes of complicated requests.

Thank you, Daniswa. You walked me through a frustrating and drawn-out process where for most part it appeared as though the left-hand had no idea of what the right was doing.