Practicalmadness

I was watching a History Channel doc the other day about the history of the U.S. banking industry, that included a brief corporography of Bank of America, the nation's first large-scale branch bank. Also mentioned: the design of bank structures, specifically how the neoclassical architecture employed by banks up to and through the 20th century was meant to symbolize strength and stability -- that banks look a certain way so as to reinforce the people's faith in their financial system.

Where these two stories come together is evident here in Chicago, where Bank of America -- which opened its first Chicago branch about 18 months ago -- is in the middle of a truly staggering expansion. They currently have prime locations in the Loop and in every major Chicago neighborhood, with new ones opening all the time. And it's not just them: Washington Mutual, famous mostly for not charging customers of other banks to use their ATMs¹, is opening tons of locations, while TCF (which heretofore has operated mostly out of Jewel supermarkets) and LaSalle (which has gotten an image makeover after being bought out by ABN AMRO) are also expanding their presence in the city.

It's remarkable that the banking industry in Chicago has gotten so competitive so quickly -- when I came here five years ago, the only really large banks were Citibank and First Chicago (now going by the name of their parent company, Bank One), with LaSalle, MidAmerica and North Community operating as smaller local alternatives. But even more amazing than the variety is that many of the new branch banks, especially the ones opened by B. of A. and WaMu, don't look like traditional banks and aren't opening in spaces that you'd associate with a bank.

The B. of A. branch I go to most often, at Washington and Dearborn, used to be a Hallmark greeting card store. I passed one at Clark and Fullerton today that used to be a Gap, and still looks enough like a Gap that I should have snapped a picture and submitted it to NotFoolingAnybody.com. The WaMu branches are storefronts so nestled in with the other storefronts that you really do have to look twice to realize that they're banks.

The big part of this is the layout and decor. WaMu's interiors are bright and colorful -- it would seem that they're aiming for younger customers by filling their space with a totally different vibe than the more officious, dare I say intimidating feel of (e.g.) Citibank.

Bank of America, meanwhile, has earned my love and respect by adopting an inviting, wide open floor plan that, unlike most Chicago banks, has no obstacles between the front door and the teller counter. In fact, unlike Citibank and WaMu, B.o.A.'s ATM machine is not even accessible from the lobby, giving one the impression that they actually want you to do your banking with a human being.

What's more, they're friendly. I have yet to go into a B.o.A. branch in Chicago where they don't greet you at the door, and tell to have a good one on your way out.

This is fantastic. This completely obliterates one's notions of what banking feels like. This is nothing like my former bank, Citibank, where the only white male behind the teller counter is relegated only to business accounts. These new banks actually try to create the impression not only that they want your business, but tacitly acknowledge that there is more to getting it than just putting out a shingle and handing you a debit card.

Regarding banks and race-awareness

The comment about the tellers at Citibank is an admittedly race-aware statement. At the time I was there, the other tellers were Latina women generally dressed in casual clothes, with a dark-skinned, presumably Indian or Pakistani, man wearning a golf shirt supervising them. The one visible white person in a customer service position for a company run exclusively by white people was handling only business clients. I do not mean to suggest that the Latinas were necessarily providing inferior service -- trust me, being from Alabama I'm very well aware of the white man's capacity for ineptitude.

But in Chicago, a city where the service workers -- Starbucks notwithstanding -- are all black or Hispanic with the occasional Asian or Polish caucasian thrown in, what does it say when Citibank -- the ultimate Eastern establishment bank, an institution so powerful that they are the only Chicago consumer bank to not even hint that they offer free checking -- not only has a separate-but-equal thing going on with whites and hispanics, consumers and business, but doesn't even have their tellers at a Loop branch wear ties?

The thing is that I haven't yet had reason to doubt the professionalism of the staff at my Bank of America branch, where the staff is also mostly non-white, which is the case at a lot of Chicago banks. In fact, to see a blond-haired white person behind the counter in any bank is only slightly unusual, but goes from unusual to infuriating when they're sitting under a sign that says CITIBUSINESS.

I wonder, does he get paid more to be the CitiBusiness teller? You can be sure that the clients he deals with generally have much larger, more lucrative relationships with the company than the average consumer. I wonder, if those business customers give Citibank an extra few grand, can they have blowjobs in the back office from an Anglo woman from corporate?

So it's not the fact of non-whites serving customers that I mind, just the idea that Citibank associates a higher tier of service with whiteness. Granted, this is just one branch of a massive corporation, and I'm sure there are non-male, non-white CitiBusiness tellers at some Citibank branch somewhere. But at this branch, where you have a bunch of minorities hustling to serve everyday customers while a blonde white guy just sits there earning the same or better money to just wait for these phantom business customers is a little disgusting.