Banks are often accused of only wanting our money but this story is about a bank that absolutely does not want the money of a certain cohort of potential customers.

Brian Cassidy has three children aged between eight and 11 years old. Like many parents he has been keen to introduce them to the concept of cash — and, perhaps, more importantly, the notion of saving it.

In times past the Cassidy children had savings accounts with Ulster Bank. The accounts came with Henry Hippo Money boxes, Brian writes, and for years all was well. Then, of course, things stopped being well because Ulster Bank announced that it was leaving the Irish market which meant that the young savers’ accounts had to be closed — although they were able to hang on to their Henry Hippo moneyboxes.

“My wife and I have a joint bank account with of Bank of Ireland, so for convenience I went to my local branch in April to open savings accounts for them. The customer service agent asked their ages and advised me to come back to the branch with them on a convenient day with their ID, proof of residence,” Brian writes

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Brian did as he was told and returned to the branch the following week with his three children in tow with passports and paperwork. “After waiting 10 minutes to be served today another agent took their paperwork and returned shortly after to advise she could not open bank accounts as Bank of Ireland did not offer products to any of their age cohort. She advised they were ‘too old’ to open a Stage 1 account (0-7) and ‘too young’ to open a Stage 2 account. On the way home my children were confused as to why Bank of Ireland ‘didn’t want them’!”

Brian then wrote to Bank of Ireland’s complaints departing to give out first about “being sent on a fool’s errand by the initial customer agent but secondly [because] Bank of Ireland were actively practising age discrimination by excluding 8, 9, 10 and 11-year-olds from accessing their services. Their marketing tools are very misleading as they have an Ollie the Owl character on their website with guide to help educate children about money for children up the age of 12.”

A further five weeks passed and then a response from the customer complaints team landed. That said after investigation they could confirm that they did not offer products to these age cohorts, but were actively considering so in the future. “Woohoo Bank of Ireland! Some day my kids could have the privilege of being your customer. No thanks.”

Brian says that as a shareholder in Bank of Ireland “and a PAYE worker who helped bailed them out I was stunned at lack of commercial acumen and disregard for shareholder value in taking new business. As I said to the agent, you have lost three likely life-long customers and I’m forced to go to a competitor.

“I actually did my undergrad thesis nearly 30 years ago on bank loyalty among third-level students. Typically customers have inertia when moving banks and can have customers for life but it appears BofI does not have such insights on customer retention, but more likely they are fully aware the lack of competition in this country means they don’t have to act like normal commercial entity. I mourn the demise of Henry Hippo as Ollie the Owl doesn’t give a hoot!”

We were frankly amazed by this story and could not get our head around why the bank wanted the money of children from the age of zero to seven and those over the age of 12 but did not want the cash of this very small — but potentially loaded cohort. Have Bank of Ireland not heard of Communion money for pity’s sake?

We were also struck by Brian’s thesis on bank loyalty among third-level students and are ashamed to admit that the only reason that Pricewatch. banks with the bank we bank with is because its branch on the campus of University College Galway (as it was known then) offed new customers a £10 overdraft which we used to buy cider. We can only imagine how much money that bank has made from us over the last 30 or so years from that small investment.

We contacted the bank and received a statement which was not much better than what Brian had been told.

“We sincerely apologise for giving our customer the wrong information and for the inconvenience and disappointment of an unnecessary trip back to his branch,” a spokeswoman said.

“Bank of Ireland is committed to supporting and building the financial wellbeing of young people and our ‘Ollie the Owl’ packs provide a fun and engaging way to learn about money and finance.

“Our ‘Save for Kids’ proposition currently includes ‘ChildSave’ and ‘GoalSaver’ accounts, opened in the parents’ name, supporting savings for children of any age.

We are also working on a new product for 7–16-year-olds and their parents, which will allow children to hold an account in their own name and use this to learn about savings and managing their money. We hope to be able to share more information about this in the near future.”