BCR- Preferrential exchange rates through online banking campaign

In December 2011, one of the largest bank in Romania, Banca Comerciala Romana, introduced a new promotional campaign, promoted on every media, for foreign exchanges made through the online banking platform. The campaign offered a promotional exchange rate for those exchanges initiated in Click 24 Banking and Alo 24 Banking (components of the internet banking service offered by BCR), so the bank could raise the number of exchanges made online. For each currency available for exchange, the rates (for buying and selling) were adjusted in the benefit of the client, + or - 0.0075. The intention was good but had some flaws, overlooked by the responsible of the campaign. In some cases, the adjustment coefficient, made the selling rate lower the buying one, giving the clients the possibility to gain profit by buying a currency then selling it, multiple times. The currencies which made possible the profit were the ones that had a small gap between the exchange rates like: Russian rubles, Danish and Czech crowns and Hungarian forints. For 5 days the clients had the possibilities to do multiple exchanges and to gain profits as high as 500.000 Euros in some cases. I worked in the BCR contact center, in the department of Alternative Channels, which offered support for the use of the online banking application and made phone transactions. After the launch of the campaign, clients started to observe the profit possibility and called to see if they are making something illegal. Since it was our duty as agents to give the customer the right answer we contacted the BCR and ask about the situation. The BCR representatives responded that everything is legal and that the exchange rates are correct and the clients can continue to make foreign exchanges in this promotional campaign. Starting from that moment, the clients knew that everything was legal and continued with the transactions and some of us started to do it also. In the 5th day BCR announced that the campaign will be available just for 4 currencies (EURO, USD, CHF and GBP), not for all, eliminating the currencies that made possible the profit. In the same day every person who did any kind of profit from exchanges received a threatening message to return the profit made into a special account or else they will be brought to justice

for the prejudice made to the bank. After the message some clients received threatening phone calls in which they were accused by fraud. The employees of the call center were obliged to give back the profit on the promise they will not get fired, but even if they returned the money their working contract was terminated. After two weeks the bank erased all the messages from the clients inboxes, all the post related to this subject on forums and stopped all the threats to clients that didnt return the money. Furthermore, I am going to analyze the ethical aspects of the case from two aspects: the actions of the bank and the actions of the clients/ employees. The BCR idea of promoting the use of internet and phone transactions by giving the clients an incentive had good intentions, for both the bank and for the clients. Since nowadays the banking system is trying to change the customers habits and perception in using the alternative banking the online platform, is understandable the incentive given to its clients. As the Kantian ethics teach us: the good made to others is only a mean of maximizing and consolidating a companys profit, the campaign was though as a mean of rising the number of foreign exchanges done online , assuring a considerable profit for the bank. Obviously the company didnt realize that the campaign will bring terrible losses, thinking only about the future profit, the responsible didnt analyze all the possible outcomes. The campaign was heavily promoted through all channel of media : TV spot, newspapers, internet, even messages to clients in their Click 24 Banking application inboxes. As I stated before, when asked, the bank representatives said that everything was legal and there was not a single problem with making the exchanges. After realizing the high amount of losses the bank changed their statement and said that the exchanges were done illegally. I personally dont believe that the bank actions, that followed were legal or ethical. Its not acceptable for a company to threaten its clients with a juridical process, especially when they didnt do anything illegal. The second nonethical thing that the bank did was to lie in the messages send to the clients that gain from their mistake, saying that the exchange rates were changed between them, as a result of a technical issue. All the actions initiated by the bank had as purpose to intimidate the clients, to frighten them so that they could recover their losses.

A similar case was the EMAG, the online Romanian store, situation, when in one night, because of a technical issue the prices of some products were display at a much lower value, but the company did the ethical thing assuming their mistake, they delivered the goods bought by the clients. BCR tried to cover up the entire incident, threatened its clients, lied to them, this is why there is no information about it in any media. The actions made by the clients were made just to follow a value presented by Aristotle: the value-mean by gaining wealth. Almost every person put in the situation of making a profit easy will do the same thing. Its hard to refuse the possibility of profit made easy and legally because for some of us this can bring us close to the value- purpose: the happiness. In this case, an ethical principle formulated by Aristotle could helped a lot of people : aurea mediocritas , avoiding the excess. If some clients were moderate maybe the loss of the bank wouldnt reached such a high level and then the company wouldnt started to do such unethical actions. When analyzing the actions of the employees that also made a profit from the situation presented I would refer to the enlightened self- interest principle that states that every individual should care about others, because the cooperation and reciprocity are more profitable than a generalized conflict. The employees didnt took into consideration this principle. The bank had meeting with some of the employees that made the most profit and again using intimidation it wanted to know from which person the information about the possibility of profit started and the connection between some employees and other clients that were involved in the case. Again with the promise of keeping their jobs some of the employees started to speak, but they only made it worse for themselves and their colleagues. They didnt believe that cooperation could bring them more advantages , then competition. Practically it was a Prisoners Dilemma , but the bank didnt keep it promise. The majority of employees started to turn on each other hoping to gain immunity, but this only made their situation much worse. In case they cooperated, the benefits for all would be bigger in opposition with the situation that followed. They were forced to give the money back and lost their jobs. Source : Direct Experience Student : Marin Luisa , gr.953, REI, III