Standard Bank is becoming Stranded Bank

Standard Bank service has declined dramatically over the past 2.5 years. Their call centre has become harder to get through to than a government service and even when you do it is really difficult to sort out an issue. Two recent examples: 1. We are trying to increase the limit on a business account. It is the third day now of trying. The website gives a number to phone. You phone this and after holding on for up to 40 minutes are then told that for business queries they need to transfer you. This is then another wait and the first time it was cut off. The second time we gave up after being 197th in the queue. We left a message and that night they phoned back but could not assist. The third time we were transferred to someone who said it was an incorrect place and they then transferred us again. We were told that the person we needed to speak to was busy. They took our number and we are still waiting after 3 hours for that person to phone back. We have just phoned again but after and still await some sort of response. . 2. I tried to make a credit card payment for an Airbnb booking I was making. The bank blocked the card even though we had sufficient funds. I phoned the bank andagain after approx 40 minutes I was asked a number of questions many which were unrelated to my bank account. I was then informed that I could not be helped as I had got a question incorrect. I then went to a physical branch. Even though I was first in the queue I waited about 30 minutes as though there were about 8 desks for consultants only 2 were present. The consultant then gave an instruction on the computer for the block to be lifted, She then had to phone the credit card division. She waited about 20 minutes and then it took her about 15 minutes for the person on the other end to actually do the task. So, all in all about 5 hours of my time to actually use my credit card for a transaction not more than a seven thousand rand. There are a number of other issues I can mention recently. For a customer who has banked for more than forty years with Standard this is really poor service. I am considering moving to another bank.