The Time Value of Money

Consider the Sovereign Bank clock.

I do just about every weekday, en route to the train station. In theory, it should give me a sense as to whether or not I'll catch the 8.04 heading downtown.

The reality requires some degree of guesswork and mathematics, though, as the Sovereign Bank clock is comically inaccurate, off by an average of 70 minutes.

(It was 7:10 pm when I took this picture.)

Guess this could be viewed as an apt metaphor for the sad state of the financial industry today.

At the very least, a bank that can’t keep time doesn’t exactly instill confidence in this prospective bank customer.

“Hello, I wanted to check my balance.”

“Certainly, Mr. B. Looks like you have somewhere around $500 in your checking account.”

“Hmmm . . .I thought I . . .

“You know, give or take $200. You might have had a couple of transactions since last week. We’ll probably be updating our files pretty soon.”

To be fair to the Regional Director of Timekeeping at Sovereign Bank, it’s only been a few weeks since we went off Daylight Savings. I can only imagine the vast coordination and planning involved in pulling off the Herculean task of changing the time on that giant clock -- twice a year! Of course, in this day and age of people sporting their fancy “wrist-watches” and all, the public display of time could be viewed as a luxury rather than a necessity.

But keeping and displaying an accurate measure of a valued commodity seems like it should be right in a bank’s wheelhouse.

As opposed to that of my wife, whose bedside clock inaccuracies rival those of Sovereign Bank. But that’s another post . . .