Second Update: The Process of Banking in Sierra Leone

The bright idea was to open a savings account with one of the local banks, for one I would be able to better manage my money and I would be relieved from having to worry about “tief-man” discovering secret caches of 100-dollar notes tucked away in my luggage. My organization suggested the government’s financial institution, Sierra Leone Commercial Bank. The SLCB building in downtown Freetown is the home of eternal queues (sort of like Ngugi Wa Thiongo’s novel Wizard of the Crow), but we will get to the queues.

First, as a foreigner one needs to have two sponsors in order to open a savings account. In addition, one requires two passport photos and a photocopy of your passport. For the photos you make your way to Lion Photo on Siaka Stevens and Bathurst Street, and fend of the two-dozen or so amateur photographers that are hustling for customers (changing money on the black market is a similar experience). Now back to the bank…

After filling out the necessary forms and waiting on several long queues, you are ushered into a back room where half-dozen people are waiting for a lone secretary. Her desk is raised about two and a half feet off the ground, she seems regal, slightly disinterested and speaks to you in a very low voice. The woman or “auntie” places your’s name on the list to obtain a bankcard and you are asked to return in a few days. When you return to retrieve your newly laminated credential, you are sent away for another day. Now if you wish to deposit in another currency vis-à-vis dollars, euros, pounds, etc you must make your way to the foreign exchange department. Once you’ve lost a few thousand Leones to the official exchange rate, you have successfully made your first deposit!

Several days later you decide to make your first withdrawl. After making your way into the air-conditioned heaven of SLCB, the queuing begins. You first wait on a queue to check your balance. Twenty-five or so people crowd around a teller, which first collects the bank cards, hands you a green withdrawl slip and writes your balance on a strip of paper. The next endless queue begins at the opposite end of the bank. Since SLCB is the government bank a bulk of the customers are police officers, teachers, correctional officers and other civil servants. It is the beginning of a new month and everyone is collecting their monthly salary. Despite the long wait and the obvious frustration written on my face, most Sierra Leoneans are warm, good-spirited, and incredibly patient.

Several times on the line you are greeted, “Eh boh, ow di bodi,” (How is everything) “Tell god tankie” (Tell god thanks) “Kusheau” (good work). The idea of having to spend three-quarters of your day making a simple banking transaction is hard to swallow. Thankfully, or perhaps regretfully there are ways to circumvent the unnecessary red tape. In Sierra Leone as in most developing countries there are ways to get around the tediousness. In regards to banking what occurs is someone introduces you to a bank manager, and a daylong process becomes a fifteen-minute affair. There are no bribes involved, it’s all about whom you know. Sort of like some of the posh parties in New York that if you know the right people queues cease to exist. But, what can you do, you are an expat, it is impossible to make your experience genuinely authentic.

Tags: Banking, red tape, Salone