Employees of the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China in Kunming, capital of the southwestern province of Yunnan, have set an example of customer service that will be hard for the bank’s competitors to emulate.

At least half a dozen Chinese media sources tell the story of how on June 28, a woman named Zhang entered the bank with 32,000 yuan (or $4,500) worth of severely shredded bank notes. They had been torn into over 100,000 pieces, some as small as a fingernail, five years ago by her sister-in-law while suffering from severe depression. The sister-in-law recently passed away, leaving a husband and four children in an impoverished mountain village with great needs and few funds. Zhang, who lived in nearby Sichuan province, had brought the money to some local banks there, but none agreed to help, despite the Chinese law that banks should exchange damaged and incomplete bank notes at no charge. When on a visit to Yunnan, Ms. Zhang took the money with her and went to the bank in Kunming, where she told officials that the shredded money would have been enough for the family to live on for a while.

Upon hearing of the family’s plight, the bank assigned four staff members to work overtime to put the notes back together. There were three types of notes, having different patterns. It took 22 days to clean, disinfect, and reassemble the pieces under magnification. On July 19, Zhang was given an equal value of new currency. In appreciation, she gave the bank employees a hand-crafted silk banner translating to “Take people’s difficulties into consideration, solve problems and warm hearts.”

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