When Marketing Templates Go Horribly Wrong: A Banking Comedy of Errors
There’s something darkly comedic about watching a major bank accidentally reveal exactly what they think of their customers. ME Bank managed to do just that this week when they sent out what I can only describe as the most tone-deaf interest rate increase notification in Australian banking history.
The message was meant to inform customers about a rate hike. Fair enough – the RBA moves, banks follow, we all know the drill. But the wording? Chef’s kiss of corporate incompetence. “We are pleased to announce… we’re passing on this rate increase in full!” Followed by congratulatory language and what basically amounted to “Congratulations! You now owe us more money! 🎉”
Look, I’ve worked in IT long enough to know exactly how this happened. Someone grabbed last month’s template – probably from when savings rates went up or when rates were decreasing – did a quick find-and-replace, and fired it off without a second thought. Maybe ChatGPT was involved, though one commenter rightly pointed out that even AI would’ve raised an eyebrow at this one. The real kicker? Multiple layers of management probably signed off on this without actually reading it.
What frustrates me isn’t just the incompetence, though that’s annoying enough. It’s the blatant double standard that everyone’s pointing out in the responses. When rates go up? “You have 24 hours to pay us more money!” When they go down? “We’ll think about passing on the savings… in three weeks… maybe.” The asymmetry is so obvious it’s almost insulting. Banks fall over themselves to increase what we owe them instantly, but implementing rate decreases requires endless “consideration” and “processing time.”
The whole episode reminds me of dealing with my daughter’s school communications sometimes – you can tell when someone’s just going through the motions versus actually thinking about what they’re saying. Except in this case, it’s a major financial institution playing with people’s mortgages and livelihoods.
Someone in the comments mentioned that ME Bank used to be better back when the super funds owned them. That tracks with my experience of corporate Australia generally. Once the big players take over, the “efficiency improvements” start rolling in. Staff get cut, proper review processes become “unnecessary overhead,” and suddenly you’ve got emails going out that read like they were written by someone actively hostile to customers.
The defenders saying “it’s just a template mistake, people are reading too much into it” are missing the point entirely. Yes, it’s probably a cock-up rather than conspiracy. But the fact that such a template exists – one that treats rate increases like a celebration – tells you everything about how these institutions actually view us. We’re not customers to be served; we’re revenue streams to be optimised.
What really needs to happen here isn’t just firing some poor graduate (though someone’s definitely getting a bollocking). It’s a proper rethink of how banks communicate with people, especially about money that materially affects their lives. Maybe implement actual review processes. Maybe have someone who isn’t on a $200k package and completely disconnected from financial stress actually read the bloody emails before they go out.
The silver lining? At least this mistake has sparked a broader conversation about banking practices. People are questioning why rate increases happen overnight while decreases take weeks. They’re noticing how savings rate increases get announced with fanfare while mortgage rate increases come wrapped in celebration bunting. Sometimes it takes a spectacular own goal to get people paying attention.
Maybe ME Bank’s marketing team accidentally did us all a favour. They said the quiet part out loud, and now we’re all talking about it. That’s worth something, even if it wasn’t intentional.
And for the record – yes, I know someone’s going to mention that the real crime here is taking a photo of a phone screen instead of using a screenshot. But honestly? Given how some banking apps deliberately block screenshots “for security,” I can’t entirely blame people for reaching for another phone. Though this was just an email, so… yeah, no excuse there really.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go check my own mortgage rate and probably get annoyed all over again.