I am extremely annoyed at what happened on May 28.

At around 11.30 a.m., my 16-year-old son received a phone call from someone at HSBC. This person spent a good 10 minutes trying to persuade him that the money he had in a special savings account was lying idle and not earning much interest when it could be invested in something that would give him a higher return.

After 10 minutes my son passed this person on to me since everything he was told was double Dutch to him. When I realised exactly what this person was trying to do I said that I was extremely annoyed and very concerned about customers' confidentiality since my son did not know anything about this account.

For those of you who do not know anything about this sort of account I should explain that there is this account called Special Savings or Golden Key Account which can be opened by parents or grandparents in the name of minors with deposits of not less than €128 up to a maximum of €2,329 yearly until the child reaches the age of 18.

This account has a fixed rate of interest of four per cent tax-free and no withdrawals are allowed except by court order.

This person who was calling did not know anything about this account and was only interested in having this money invested in some other scheme which would be more profitable for the bank and of course reach the monthly target set to HSBC staff.

After a while, when this person realised that I was extremely annoyed, I was passed on to a supervisor who I regret to say, tried to justify these tactics. I was told that the purpose of the call was not to persuade my son to invest the money somewhere else, but to explain to him that there were lots of other banking services he could make use of, like a loan account to buy a computer or a car, or that he could use internet banking or even top up his mobile through the bank, etc., and this went on for a good 20 minutes.

I think it is about time that a confidentiality law was passed and strictly enforced because it seems to me that Mepa isn't the only monster we have on these islands, and that, as I was informed by this particular supervisor, banking has changed a lot since I left the bank (where I used to work until 1995) and there is now stiff competition from other banks. Well, if that is the way the wind blows than I am extremely glad that I am no longer working there.