The future of "in branch" banking.

[Westcountryman]

I've used the bank to pay in cheques, that's it.
Now Santander ATMs will actually allow you to pay in cash and cheques, so you don't need to go in branch anymore.

My bank does have machines that allow you to do that without going further than a foyer. But only larger branches in larger towns have this facility. If I need to pay in a cheque (reimbursement for groceries bought for my Mother-in-Law) I have to either put the cheque and paying in slip (and how many accounts have those now) or use special paying in envelopes (which I have to go into the bank to obtain) and put them through the letter box. Not very high tech, and I have to wait for several days for them to open the envelope and credit to the account.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 21 Oct 2020 ==

- Paying in coins

You can do this by machine in some larger branches of my bank, but you are rather at the mercy of the machine actually being in service.

 

[Senex]

You can use a PIN instead if it isn't.

I do, including all too often for Google Pay demanding a verification. It's significantly slower than fingerprint release and one's very conscious of delaying the queue. What's happened to eye-recognition there was so much talk about a few years ago?
As for smart meters (above), they'd be fine if they worked. Mine was put in three suppliers ago, has never given readers in the house, and failed to work at the first change of supplier after installation.

 

[PeterC]

AS treasurer for a community organisation I still get a small but steady stream of cheques. Since our HSBC branch closed I have to pay these in through the Post Office.

The only problem is when we need to do something "complex" like change a signatory. With the total de-skilling of branch staff even a simple task like this now has to go to a central processing unit. From my experiences Douglas Adam's descriptions of "Vogon beaurocracy" in Hitchickers' Guide have nothing on HSBC. (We have decided to change banks rather than change signatories when I hand over to a new treasurer next year)

 

[birchesgreen]

You cannot claim back under the direct debit guarantee if the energy supplier randomly hikes up your monthly payment by 100% – the guarantee is if the payment is taken in error. If they give you enough notice of the change in payment you have to lump it.

My supplier tells me a month in advance if the amount taken is to change, if i didn't like it i can query it or switch. I've been paying DD for pretty much everything for nearly 20 years and never had any problems. Seems like other people also have had no issues.

 

[87 027]

We have decided to change banks rather than change signatories when I hand over to a new treasurer next year

Good luck with that. A relative is chair of the local branch of an educational charity and couldn't even open an additional account with the bank they already had an account with. All the other high street banks turned them down as well. Some of the "challenger" banks look superficially attractive but you need to look carefully at the small print of their community account terms and conditions. I am treasurer of a youth organisation whose rules require 2 signatories on cheques and dual authorisation for online banking (i.e. one of the signatories logs on to online banking to set up the payment but a different signatory then has to log on to release it). Not all banks offer this and some who do charge for it. ATM and debit cards would definitely not be allowed as it means one person acting alone has access to funds. This discussion so far seems very individual-centric.

 

[najaB]

It's fairly easy to withdraw up to about £300 (depending on your bank) from an ATM.

Depending on the bank you can have a higher limit than that. I'm with Nationwide and my ATM limit is £500.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Depending on the bank you can have a higher limit than that. I'm with Nationwide and my ATM limit is £500.

Just checked and Monzo is £400.

I can recall only one single occasion in my whole life when the amount I wanted exceeded this (the purchase of a used car for cash about 15 years ago).

 

[Westcountryman]

As I have 2 accounts with my main bank and one account with a second bank, both with two cards, if we needed to we could get £2000 a day in cash.

 

[Cletus]

Had to do work's paying-in yesterday for the 1st time in years.

Drove to different town (local branch closed down). Had to queue outside until called in. Only one other customer in there, but 4 members of staff. Made to stand in the middle of the room whilst the bank employee took the paying-in books from me, walked to the screen and did transactions reverse-ways under the screen.

Seemed pretty over-complicated and not particularly customer-friendly. Banks after-all always tended to have a big screen between teller and customer anyway.

 

[Islineclear3_1]

You can withdraw it from an ATM.

Who withdraws cash over the counter in 2020?

I do !

I prefer counter service where it's available for the face-to-face interaction - better than a machine. And I would not do online banking on my phone; I am not convinced it is secure, especially in WiFi areas

 

[87 027]

I repeat my observation that going 100% online is fine for individuals, and indeed I have done so myself apart for those once-in-a-blue-moon cheques, received occasionally from elderly relatives, which can be dealt with straightforwardly by scanning in to a relevant app or machine. But voluntary organisations are a different kettle of fish and operate under a different set of practical constraints depending on the governing rules. I really can't see cash ceasing to be feature of jumble sales, tombolas, raffles and Christmas fairs for a good few years yet. Our national rules explicitly require cash taken at events to be banked into an account in the name of the organisation and explicitly forbid it to be paid into the personal account of one of the volunteers. They require any payment to be subject to a preventive dual control (so payment can not physically be made by one person acting alone.) Archaic? Maybe. Reality? Yes, until the national rules change. And we are dealing with a national organisation here - @Bletchleyite will have a clue which one I'm referring to

 

[Daniel740]

Also don’t forget there are people who physically cannot have a bank account so have to use cash, people who have been made bankrupt for example.

 

[najaB]

And I would not do online banking on my phone; I am not convinced it is secure, especially in WiFi areas.

It is. The banks have to demonstrate that they comply with PCI-DSS, PSD2 and several other regulatory standards which mean that the likelihood of man-in-the-middle attacks on mobile banking systems is vanishingly small.

 

[Peter Mugridge]

I've experienced, that I can recall, about 4-5 power cuts in my lifetime, and of those most of them were in the middle of the night

You've not tried living in Epsom have you?

We've had three daytime / evening power cuts in our local area within the space of a fortnight about 3 months ago, and it's not unusual to have at least that many in a typical calendar year.

 

[crablab]

What is this concept of a "branch"? Is that like the ones on GitHub? (cc. @Bletchleyite)

 

[charley_17/7]

If the age of 'branch' banking is dead, why are Metro Bank so keen to open some many stores and expand beyond London & the South East? Pre-Covid, it was quite good to be able to visit before and after work, being open 7am to 7pm, as well as weekends. Also having the facility to print your cards straight away, and the excellent public toilets facilities that could be used. Shame other banks seem to be doing the opposite. TSB are even making it impossible to use their online banking, they now no longer support Chrome!! When they suggested I use Firefox instead, that didn't work either, so I've just chosen to not bother with them anymore.

 

[gingerheid]

TSB are even making it impossible to use their online banking, they now no longer support Chrome!!

Wow!!!

 

[87 027]

TSB are even making it impossible to use their online banking, they now no longer support Chrome!!

Possibly OT but a few weeks ago our IT administrators at work announced that Chrome was being removed from all corporate laptops due to security concerns, which has since happened

 

[Ashley Hill]

Apologies if this has been mentioned before but I find it irritating to be quizzed by a bank employee as to why I'm visiting the branch and why am I not using their app or online banking (is there a difference?) . These fools are talking themselves out of a job. It's bad enough I get directed towards a machine as the only window available is for foreign and business banking only.
I see that post office counters now accept some bank payments, no doubt this will kill off some smaller branches.

 

[najaB]

These fools are talking themselves out of a job.

I'm sure that they aren't being told to ask these questions.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I prefer counter service where it's available for the face-to-face interaction - better than a machine.

But the question is, if people are lacking in face to face interaction (as many people sadly are; you often hear of older people going to the post office pretty much for a chat) should we not try to fix that in some way? As a bank transaction isn't exactly the quality of interaction you'd hope people might have.

And I would not do online banking on my phone; I am not convinced it is secure, especially in WiFi areas

It is; the transaction itself is encrypted so you could write it on a sheet of A4 and leave it in the road with effectively zero risk of anyone doing anything with it. If using 4G it's double-encrypted - the 4G is encrypted and then the transaction is as well!

The (very tiny) risks posed by online banking don't come from online banking itself. They come from "social engineering" - fake emails that try to get you to type your password into their website and the likes - plus the occasional major breach which doesn't occur from your device.

 

[island]

Also don’t forget there are people who physically cannot have a bank account so have to use cash, people who have been made bankrupt for example.

People who have been made bankrupt can have basic bank accounts, but not ones that allow borrowing.

 

[Bletchleyite]

People who have been made bankrupt can have basic bank accounts, but not ones that allow borrowing.

Indeed. The only people who will have trouble having a bank account of any kind are (a) young children, (b) people who are not living legally in the UK and (c) homeless people.

(a) go via their parents, (b) need to resolve their immigration status (and the Government could help more on this), and (c) really needs a national drive to solve properly. None are a reason to retain cash acceptance in and of themselves.

 

[maniacmartin]

You can also be denied a basic bank account if you have been convicted of fraud.

I avoid using cash where possible and always withdraw it from an ATM. However, until COVID appeared, I still was a regular branch visitor as many things can't be done online at all branches:

• Sending a CHAPS payment whose amount is over the online banking limit
• Paying in cheques worth over £750 or whatever the app limit was at a time
• Paying in multiple cheques whose cumulative value exceeds the app's daily limit
• Redeeming (paying off in full) a mortgage. (With Nationwide you can do this at any branch counter with no notice if the cash is in a Nationwide current account)
• Changing my address after I moved house

Most of these visits were down to my partner being self-employed and having customers such as county councils and other large organisations who refused to pay electronically. Since COVID, most have started paying by BACS instead though.

That said, I suspect most branch visits are for things that can be done online, just some people don't understand or trust the technology.


As for Direct Debits, I use them if there is a discount for doing so. Unlike Bletchleyite, I have had multiple utility and telecoms companies take the wrong amount in the past. Usually this is down to their creaking IT systems or botched IT upgrades. It's also the case that some banks are not that willing to invoke the DD guarantee when its an obvious error. e.g. when my council tax DD was taken twice on the same day. I've had such little luck using it I place no value on the guarantee at all.

Also, if you are fortunate enough to have multiple houses, many utility companies can't handle that properly - ie you can't have 2 supply addresses attached to one email address or billing address in their customer-facing online systems, so all account queries have to go via their callcentres, which is a big pain, and multiple times utility companies has got things confused when setting up DDs for me. There will always be edge cases like this which require interacting with humans.

 

[najaB]

There will always be edge cases like this which require interacting with humans.

That is true, the question is if it's worth the cost of maintaining an extensive branch network to handle what are increasingly edge cases, or if it makes more sense for the banks to pool their customer-facing staff in a smaller number of better-equipped locations. I dare say different banks will come to different answers, but it's worth noting that some of the online-only banks have much higher customer satisfaction ratings than the traditional branch-based ones.

 

[Bletchleyite]

That is true, the question is if it's worth the cost of maintaining an extensive branch network to handle what are increasingly edge cases, or if it makes more sense for the banks to pool their customer-facing staff in a smaller number of better-equipped locations. I dare say different banks will come to different answers, but it's worth noting that some of the online-only banks have much higher customer satisfaction ratings than the traditional branch-based ones.

Part of the reason for this is that because people can do most simple transactions themselves, you can have those call centre staff you do have spend more time to deal with the customer's problem properly rather than rushing to keep their call stats favourable. And you can also have a smaller number of more expensive, better skilled staff with more discretion to deal with problems.

This fits with my view on the whole thing, really - humans make terrible automatons, and I gain nothing and lose lots by having to talk to someone who is using an IT system I can use myself - all that does is adds another human who can make a mistake. What humans are good at is dealing with human problems - ones that don't fit the system - or trying to work out how they can fit. Or, on the "teach a man to fish" basis, spending time to teach people to use the IT system which they can then use themselves next time.

 

[DB]

Possibly OT but a few weeks ago our IT administrators at work announced that Chrome was being removed from all corporate laptops due to security concerns, which has since happened

Which browser do they use? I'm not keen on Chrome (and we don't use it), but avoiding Chromium-based browsers is getting more and more difficult. THe new Edge doesn't seem much better than Chrome when it comes to security (it is Chromium-based). Others such as Brave are better, although Chromium-based.

The only mainstream ones now which aren't based on Chromium and Safari (Apple only) and Firefox - we use Firefox, and it's noticeable that an increasing number of sites give problems because they haven't been tested properly on anything other than Chromium browsers (Of which Chrome and Edge are the two main examples).

 

[maniacmartin]

This fits with my view on the whole thing, really - humans make terrible automatons, and I gain nothing and lose lots by having to talk to someone who is using an IT system I can use myself - all that does is adds another human who can make a mistake. What humans are good at is dealing with human problems - ones that don't fit the system - or trying to work out how they can fit. Or, on the "teach a man to fish" basis, spending time to teach people to use the IT system which they can then use themselves next time.

I agree. We need humans who can do the things that the machines can't, or can offer expert advice, not to just add another layer of indirection.

 

[birchesgreen]

(b) people who are not living legally in the UK

There is a way. I knew someone who was here illegally (they are legal now) and they managed to get a Nationwide account. Law has probably been tightened up nowadays though.

 

[najaB]

There is a way. I knew someone who was here illegally (they are legal now) and they managed to get a Nationwide account. Law has probably been tightened up nowadays though.

Indeed. You only need to be not-obviously-illegal at the time you open the account.