possible use of ATM machines at Bermuda's two main banks? None at all, says the Bank of Butterfield. Some, according to the Bank of Bermuda.

The Business Diary received a letter from an irate Bank of Bermuda customer who was sent a questionnaire by the bank.

"Most of the questions seemed relevant, but then I came to one in the personal section that asks whether I am white, black or other,'' said the author, who signed himself `non-racist'.

"What on earth does race have to do with the use of an ATM? -- unless of course the bank proposes to have one outlet for whites, one for blacks and another for the remaining scraps of humanity labelled `other'.

"One has to despair of Bermuda ever resolving its so-called racial problems when a major institution persists in perpetuating the myth with such meaningless statistics.'' The Bank of Butterfield agrees with him.

Mr. Tom Lamont, Butterfield's senior manager of marketing, said: "We deliberately do not ask that question because we agree with the respondent.'' So why does the Bank of Bermuda ask if someone is black or white? Mr. Stanley Wright, the Bank's manager of card services, denied it was a question carrying racial undertones.

"We ask the question because we want to ensure, as a bank, that we are servicing our customers on an equal footing,'' he said.

But what is the relevance? "It's important that we segregate different groups by category,'' said Mr.

Wright.

"Other information we seek includes a person's sex, their age, occupation, educational and professional background.

"It's important that if the black community feels the bank is prejudiced towards them then we do something about it. Surveys such as this would help us do this.'' *** Readers of last week's Business Diary were told the tale of how letters proposing dodgy business transactions are flooding Bermuda from Nigeria.

A closer insight into the machinations of such schemes are given in a brazen letter sent to a local law firm which was passed on to the Business Diary.

Written by a Chief Elo Jomoni (Joe Money?), of the Nigerian capital, Lagos, it seemingly proudly sets out in no uncertain terms that the scheme being proposed is illegal.

"I work under the Foreign Bills Department of the Federal Ministry of Aviation which oversees the Nation's Aviation Procument (sic) Division and Sales,'' writes Chief Jomoni, in far better English than used in the letter highlighted last week.

"Some time ago, a Foreign Firm was contracted to supply and install some equipment at one of the Aviation Department located in Port Harcourt.

"The real value of the contract was US$38 Million, but I in collaboration with some of my colleagues at our head office, overvalued the contract to the tune of US$46 million.

"We did this intelligently as is the case with most Government contracts in recent times whereby contracts are given upward adjustments in their values following the effects of inflationary forces that are obtained in our economy coupled with the depreciating in the value of our National Currency the Naira in the face of major world currencies.'' Time was of the essence, the letter stated, because the money had to be siphoned off into a tax free environment before "the military hand over power to civilians come 1993''.

Chief Jomoni calls the scam "foul proof'' (sic) and goes on: "All we require from you is strick (sic) confidence and candid help to see that we achieve this rear goal.'' The letter actually gives a telephone number, which the Business Diary dialled several times last week, but with no reply.

Further attempts will be made, so keep your eyes peeled on next Monday's column.