Definitely not the type of bank that deserves business

WORST BUSINESS BANKING EXPERIENCE EVER

It is with great frustration and dismay that we herewith formally appeal our applications for credit that were declined by your institution. We are using this portal with the hope that there may be a snowball's chance in hell that your organization may have some form of service delivery and professionalism.

We had the unfortunate experience of applying for credit with your business banking division. We originally instructed our banker to apply for an overdraft and possibly vehicle finance 12 weeks ago.

Two weeks after the initial request we app**** for a Bond through a mortgage originator, whereupon our mortgage application was sent to the banker.

It was at this stage - 2 WEEKS after our initial instruction - that we realized that the banker had not even submitted the first request and was now adding the mortgage to the initial request, which worried us, as we believed that it would unfairly prejudice our applications - as now the total facilities app**** for ballooned to R26 million.

So not only were our applications submitted extremely late, they were now scrutinized at a micro-level, with our business and associated businesses as well as our business model being taken apart and criticized.

The whole process lasted 10 weeks during which we tried our utmost to accommodate every query in a timeous manner as relayed by our banker. Yes I did not make a typo 10 WEEKS! We sent numerous e-mails and letters requesting the process be sped up starting at week 4 so we at least get the overdraft, we were running a business during the Covid19 pandemic after all. But our pleas meant nothing at all - Nedbank was not in the business of accomodating clients, we app**** for three things and we would now need to wait. Eventually, the final response was so vague and informal, as relayed by our banker, that we still do not know whether our application was actually declined or if it was ever submitted in the first place.

Especially as Nedbank's own home loans department informed us that the Bond we app**** for was still being assessed by credit - 3 days after the banker informed us of our application being declined. Yes, it is 12 weeks now.

We run a security company and there are a number of companies associated to our company due to CEO being director on these companies, but only one company was applying for the loans and in our view the other companies were irrelevant, but we were forced to submit the list of group companies by our banker for some unknown reason, and our timeframes and requests for speedy assistance were completely ignored - as Nedbank Business Banking continued probing us and humiliating us for weeks on end.

The irony is after making us jump through all the hoops and delaying us to the point that we are about to lose the property that the finance was for - to another bidder - we were told telephonically that our application was declined.

No formal document, no reference number except the one provided by the mortgage originator and our only port of call was the same banker who apparently was still trying to find out how to appeal the matter for us. Seriously?

We, therefore, appeal our application ourself and we are considering taking this to the banking ombudsman in regards to our treatment by this organisation.