The last couple of weeks have been rough on Bank of Scotland. Its myopia in thinking it could get into bed financially with a firebrand evangelist like Pat Robertson without provoking protest was worrying enough.

The naivete with which it sought to parallel its proposed link with the US preacher to the successful partnership with British grocery chain Sainsbury was astounding. As reported in one British national newspaper, a Bank of Scotland manager explained to a customer: "We have an arm's length joint venture with Sainsbury's as we do with this chap. The only problem is that while Sainsbury deals in groceries, he deals in theology." And that was after Robertson's assault on the Scotland as a land of darkness in which homosexuals had too much power!

But perhaps of most concern was the contempt with which it treated its protesting customers . . . until it seemed the ranks of those customers might swell to hurt the bank's profits. I'm not suggesting that banks should become the policemen of morality or any such thing. But it would be nice to think they valued long-standing customers. On a brighter note, the consumer's success in ultimately forcing the bank to extricate itself from the deal, albeit at a cost, might give some hope to customers of other corporations - financial and otherwise - here of the power they hold if wielded prudently and forcefully.