This banker needs an airplane to provide service to customers
This banker needs an airplane to provide service to customers
My Economy tells the story of the new economic normal through the eyes of people trying to make it, because we know the only numbers that really matter are the ones in your economy.
In a time of so many online banking tools, a trip to the physical bank can feel daunting. Across the Atlantic, on the Orkney Islands, depositing a check in person requires a plane or a boat trip for some residents. So Anne Rendall, a banker, takes a plane to them. In partnership with the BBC, we hear from Rendall.
My name is Anne Rendall, and for work, I’m a flying banker. Orkney is a group of islands off the north coast of Scotland. Being a group of islands, we don’t have a branch on every one of them. So instead of that, I fly out each day to a different island. As far as I know, there is nowhere else in the world that have the same type of service. And I’ve been doing this for 30 years now. I leave the main office in the morning and go out to the airport and catch a small eight-seater plane and go out to one of the more remote islands and spend my day there providing a banking service to our customers and then come back in the afternoon. It’s a lifeline service for the people that actually live in the islands. They have transport, they can get in to Kirkwall, but it means, you know, they’re away from home for the whole day if they come in by boat or by plane. And small businesses can’t afford to take a whole day off work. So if I can be there and do their business for them, that’s a great advantage for them. Obviously, when you’re flying, you are at the mercy of the weather, sure, there’s wind and rain and snow and fog and all types of weather you have to contend with when you’re flying out there, so it’s certainly a part of the job. I just love flying and any type of weather. It’s quite exciting when it’s bouncing about. I really like, you know, the personal relationship with the customers because you’re going every week or every month, you get to know them. And you get to know them, and over the years, they start coming in with their children and their children’s children. So you’re getting to see the generations coming in to see you and to open their accounts. So it’s nice continuity of service.
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