I hate banks. Well, not all banks – just all the banks I deal with, with the sole exception of Absa.

The very first thing I hate about them is that, even in this article, I cannot name those I hate. I cannot write that my experience with bank XXX has been totally awful. Has been as bad as having to attend a political rally. I am not allowed to write anything bad about banks and name them simply because of advertising – if I badmouth a bank then, bingo, that bank will swiftly pull its advertising out of the magazine.

So, while there is no real rule, no editor wants an article that will affect his or her publication’s advertising revenue. I hate banks because, at the local bank, they have revamped the premises three times in 20 years, doubled the size and not changed the number of tellers. Three counters. Still the same after 20 years. The queue waiting to be served (ha! served?) is still the same length.

There are people I have met in the bank queue over the years. We have exchanged gossip in the bank queue for 20 years. I have acquaintances who have gone from unmarried to being grandparents in the time I have stood in the bank queue. Plenty of time to chat. No hurry. It is my bank which will not allow me to send money to my daughter in the UK since I have a business account. Similarly, my daughter cannot send me money since . . . uh . . . I have a business account. It is rubbish.

Banks charge to count money, to clear a cheque, to send you money . . . and I get no interest on my business account, while the bank uses the capital to get interest. Oh, I hate them. Recently, government announced that it was going to introduce biometric identity documents (IDs) and the banks, in an apparent noble gesture of generosity, have agreed to help. If the public and government agree to this, it would be the stupidest thing since a Trojan saw a present on the beach and thought: “Hey! Nice wooden horse! Let’s take it home to play with . . .”

For identification purposes, the commonest biometric information is the fingerprint or the iris of the eye, which, like fingerprints, is thought to be unique to each person. Fingerprints are most likely. So, when you go to the bank to register and get your ID card, the bank will take your fingerprint and link it to you. An ID of today is self-identifying – the photograph should look like you and you are good to go.

With a fingerprint card, the information on the card has to be checked against some other list stored on another computer. This means that every use of the card can be monitored and traced and, thus, your activity can be monitored and you can be traced – everywhere. Your spending habits, travel habits, your speeding fines . . . all will be easily accessed through a big bank database.

Right now, government pretty much knows lots about you, including your fingerprints. However, it does not know much about your spending habits or your income. The credit card people know a bit about your spending habits on credit cards but nothing about your income. But now, with the banks holding your biometric ID, they can link you to every single thing and use all this data to do you over to even more than now. And the whole thing will be all across the banking sector, to the receiver of revenue . . . everywhere.

Then there is the crime thing. Fake fingerprints are easy to make and somebody can leave yours behind at a crime scene. Since your bank will have your fingerprints, it can ID you and next thing you are in a classic false arrest. It is all too much. Even worse, when you open an account, there will be some small print that will empower the bank to do what it likes with your biometric information. You would not want to agree but, to get the account, you will have to. Banks must stay well away from biometric IDs. Will they? I doubt it.