A telling time at the NAB

It’s confirmed. The NAB really is determined to entertain the world with its word choices. I’m thrilled to have my account with them. For those outside Australia the NAB used to be called the National Australia Bank until some brilliant marketing guru decided they would be known as the Nab, not the N.A.B., but the world meaning to take or steal. Somehow they’ve got away with it, apart from a brief joke on The Gruen Transfer nobody has fallen around laughing infront of their signage.

It’s easy to pass up one strange word choice but in visiting the Nab to pay a cheque in yesterday I encountered their new queueing system. At the bottom of the non-working escalator in branch on the corner of Pitt and Hunter Street is a computer screen offering a range of transactions. I had to take this choice photo below.

I want to meet the Nab wordsmith - a genius who is clearly relishing taking the piss. How else could you come up with the most appropriate term for paying in / cashing a cheque as a ‘telling transaction’? OK technically, if we plunge back to 18 century usage teller comes from someone who tells (ie counts out) money, but did they not think that perhaps the word had a more common meaning in the 21st century?

Perhaps they did know and it was all about enhanced customer service. Perhaps when I paid my cheque in the teller would nod knowingly and say ,’that’s telling, you obviously don’t come to the bank often, this cheque’s a month old.’ Even better I hoped that he might examine my signature and tell my fortune from my handwriting. It wasn’t to be. The only thing telling about my transaction was that the teller’s cardswipe wasn’t working.

As you decide on your transaction at this bank and wait to be called, you can make yourself an espresso coffee for free. That in itself was pretty telling - the nab presumed I’d have time to drink a coffee before being called. Perhaps it’s all part of an astonishing level of honesty from the bank named Steal.