The banks have a new image. Now you have "a friend." Your friendly banker. If the banks are so friendly, how come they chain down the pens?

Alan King’s joke targets the contrast between banks’ marketing rhetoric and customers’ lived experience. By mocking the slogan-like claim that a bank is “a friend,” he points to the power imbalance in consumer finance: institutions present themselves as warm, personal, and service-oriented while maintaining strict control over the customer’s behavior. The chained pen—an everyday, slightly humiliating detail—becomes a symbol of mistrust and petty restriction. The line works as social satire: it suggests that friendliness is a branding strategy rather than a genuine relationship, and that the bank’s default assumption is that the customer might steal even something trivial.