Monday, August 11, 2008

YOU SUPPLY THE SATISFY; I'LL SUPPLY THE NEED: A mere three months ago, Adam asked:
shouldn't the machine already know the language in which you'd prefer to transact business? Presumably, if English were not your preferred language you'd be receiving your bank statements in some other tongue; moreover, after years of transactions in which you've selected English every time, what are the chances you'd be changing your mind now?
Banking expert Bill ("Inside Man Extraordinaire," reads his business card) responded:
Language preference is not something that is recorded or noted anywhere, so it cannot be communicated to the ATM terminal. It's theoretically possible and would work best on a smart card that communicated directly with the terminal. But as of now, transactions specifications do not include any data about language.
Bankers, though, will eventually respond to any demand, whether it be for a zero-down-no-credit-check jumbo mortgage (offer expires 1/1/06) or a desire to commune with consumers in a common language. Today, after emptying a senile relative's withdrawing money from my account, I was asked by Citibank's ATM whether I wanted to customize my ATM account, including by selecting a default language.

If ALOTT5MA were the San Francisco Chronicle, we'd be taking credit for this development right now.

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