... to be really annoyed about financial services provided by banks being referred to as 'products'?

[PacificDogwood]

I know, I know, there are slightly more important issues about banks in the news currently, but products, really?
As in 'this mortgage is the perfect product for you' 'our loan is a very competitive product'??

Drives me nuts.
I provide healthcare, it is not what I 'produce', FFS.

I cannot put my finger on it exactly, but there is something very wrong about referring to a service, ulitmately contract conditions, as something that sounds like it has been made.

So, AIBU?

Mhmm, there's a lot of r&d, planning & marketing which they have to effectively "produce" in order to offer the, er....product My dad's a senior product manager.

Anyway, it's just a handy word to sum up what it is. Quite lazy bank speak to be honest!

You sit down, you weave a basket, you have produced it.
You sit down, do your sums, you come up with an interest rate/T&C, you've come up with a mortgage/loan/bank account/whatever. It is NOT a product!

The more I say/write it, the more wrongly it sits with me tbh.

I have trained long and hard, I work hard every day, but I do NOT offer a product of any kind, shape or form.

I think it is language reflecting what banks would like us to think: that what they offer is something a bit more tangible than what it is...

So what would you say instead then?

Of course it's a product. Products aren't just tangible things, like baskets. They're also intangible things like insurance policies and mortgages. Look it up on Wikipedia...

Well, wouldn't be the first time that Wikipedia is Wrong.

Call it a mortgage/loan, call it a financial service if you are referring to the whole shebang. Call a spade, a spade.

I'd say they're products - even checked the dictionary for this one! It says a product is something produced by human or mechanical effort or natural process or A direct result/consequence e.g. A mortgage is a product of interest rates, costs, fees, terms and conditions. But then I work for a bank and all we refer to is products be it mortgages, ISA's, credit cards or whatever - they are all, to a product, erm, products!

What should they call it?

what really gets my goat is the horrifying trend of referring to any hair gunk as product.

Do you want some product on?

Erm I'm going to need a bit more information mr hairdresser please

So if a financial institution provides a number of "things" and these "things" could include insurance, loans, accounts etc. but they want one word to encompass all the "things" they provide, what would you suggest?

Me, I'm fine with product.

They should call it ' financial service'.

Agree re hair 'product'.

Also agree that a mortgage etc is a 'product of' interest rate etc.

I understand how the word 'product' is used in this context, but am sure that when we shopped around for a mortgage in 1996 (ancient history, I know) the financial advisers/bank people did not refer to 'products' they were flogging, but mortgages.

It's a bit DoubleSpeak to me, sorry.

It's a trick basically, a way of turning an abstract concept into a consumable posessable desirable thing

Cf those fucking egg savings accounts adverts with Zoe ball et all

I agree OP, they call it a product but I regard it as a service.

Similarly, they call it credit but I call it debt. And (used to work in IT) I used to really really hate a suite of utility programs (backup, copy etc.) being called a toolbox. No no no it is software not a torque wrench!

Changing how you describe something doesn't actually change its properties, however hard they try to convince you by repetition, repetition, repetition.

YABU

It is a product and not sure why you are so wound up about it