Banks: Don't you just love them?

I discovered something rather odd today.

If you send a letter to a bank and don't address it to a named individual the letter doesn't get opened at the branch. It goes to a "central mailroom" to be processed in another city. The result can be (the voice of experience here...) that a cheque can take a couple of weeks to get into your account. The lady at the bank in question told me that it was all to do with improving efficiency. When asked if that worked I heard a cynical laugh from the phone...