Disgusted by BNI

We are a foreign-owned company (PMA) with an account at Bank Negara Indonesia (BNI).

I have been totally disgusted by the actions of a senior manager (second-in-charge) at the BNI Mataram branch.

He reported to us that for international incoming transfers, we were now going to be charged provisi, or a provision, of one rupiah for every Rp 1,000 sent, instead of the standard Rp 100,000 that we were previously charged -- no matter what the amount.

As we are a good client of the bank and trust the management, we fully accepted the "new fees" as official and went on with our business.

Having recently checked our official bank statements and Credit Notes, I noticed that nowhere in them did these new fees appear. There are no official records of these fees anywhere. In fact, what appears is the "reimbursement" of the official provisi of Rp 100,000. Therefore, the fees that we were supposed to have been charged have been taken out of our regular bank costs.

But I'm still confused. Where do the Rp 1/Rp 1000 transfer fees show up? Are they being very nice to us now and not charging us anything for incoming international transfers?

Having looked deeper into this problem, I was told by one of our staff that occasionally when he goes to the bank to cash one of our checks, the second-in-charge at the BNI Mataram branch personally calls him aside and takes a portion of the cashed check and says, "this is for the latest transfer that came in".

Therefore, there are no official bank transaction fees recorded, as the "fees" are literally being taken in bank notes right out of our hands and not being recorded in the account.

After having enquired the BNI main office in Jakarta regarding the above, I was told that there are no such fees, that the amount seemed excessive and that they would enquire into the matter.

However, the person on the phone didn't seem too interested in our story and although it has already been several weeks, I still haven't been contacted by BNI. Not surprised.

Incidentally, since I telephoned the manager and asked him about the fees, which he assured me were official, our staff have not been asked for the cash anymore and now, as before, whenever there is an incoming transfer into our account our bank statements show a minus Rp 100,000 for "transfer fees".

FRANCESCO BRUNO, Mataram, West Nusa Tenggara