Banks usually get a lot of things wrong. In a way you get a feeling that they do that so that no one will expect anything all that smart from them. It’s like a constant game of reverse psychology that never engages in actually pushing anything in the right direction.

Today I went to pay my credit card bill at the HSBC office in bambalapitiya. Open constantly and payable through kiosks is what I was told. On a separate but related note of retarded thinking from HSBC, you can pay credit card bills at Cargill’s. But to do so you have to tell your credit card number to the cashier. This is like an ultimate in security breaches for me because it isn’t that hard to learn how to memorize 19 numbers. And to get the last 3 digits all the person has to do is flip the card over pretending to be checking for the signature. Or flip it over while handing it to a customer. And done. I refuse to go through Cargill’s for this.

Back to the kiosks then. First point of retardation. You can’t check your payments due on credit card through machine. Second point of retardation. You can’t swipe your debit card to pay the bill. You have to go to the machine next to it. Withdraw cash by swiping your debit card. Put it into an envelope AND then drop that envelope into the kiosk thing.

What. The. I don’t even… Sigh. Usability nil.