This is what was said to a Dublin Accountant this week.

The fellow was complaining of the money he had lost on a property investment that he went into with his eyes wide open. He didn’t see the crash coming and was blaming the resort developer, Bobby Ginn.

Coincidentally, I was with an old friend this week who used to be the contractor for the same Bobby Ginn. Charlie is now in his 60’s and thought back over the past 10 years. With the benefit of hindsight, he was able to say that the Ginn people did not go out to lose people money but they were caught in the same decline that everyone else was.

Charle asked the accountant, “when you signed on the dotted line, did anyone put a gun to your head?” The sheepish man answered “No”. His wife chimed in “I told you so”.

The moral of the tale is that everyone makes mistakes, but playing the blame game will only last so long. Eventually, someone will say “did anyone put a gun to your head

I attended an AIB  breakfast briefing recently on new procedures being brought into play by the nationalised Irish bank.  The starting 1/2 hour was all about themselves and the economy, not about the customer and immediately lost the attention of the audience. The breakfast kept everyone awake as we prayed for the “economy improving” speech to end.

When that did mercifully end, and 2 of the 15 people had left, it was a pity because now the real information was forthcoming.

The local manager, (a good man)  revealed that they don’t want to see you in the branch anymore, they would prefer you contacted them with your query and they would come out to visit you at your place of business and go through the details there?

What?

This was a bombshell. And a welcome one.

The bank are now interested in understanding business owners and entrepreneurs and not just sitting and waiting for reams of paper to arrive in that they can write letters back about. The new heads of AIB have now trained and communicated to their team that phoning up and “can you make a lodgment” requests eventually lead to the house of cards falling, as it always ignored other essential debts like, vat, electricity, repairs and food.

In business, you have got to be out there physically on a routine basis, shaking hands and kissing babies and finding out what is happening on the ground.

Well done AIB, you may yet rise again with this approach.