To think that banks these days are a disgrace and couldn’t care less about their customers?

I changed from Barclays

I thought with barclays you could pay cheques in and cash and draw money out at the post office?

I agree, I can see why banks don't find branches as viable with the rise of Internet banking, but plenty of people would still use them. We're fortunate here that we have a branch still, the manager said its probably just because they know people will more likely join this bank if there's one local and it's a fairly affluent area! Post offices do a bit more now I suppose at least, you can pay money in and I'm pretty sure take money out etc; just obviously not the account stuff etc.

Totally agree. My parents have a nightmare with banks and also with doctors' appointments. They get told to go online or 'get your children to help'. My brothers and I do what we can, but we are not always around. My parents are made to feel stupid for not understanding how to use apps. And no point me showing them how - they forget immediately.

The modern world is a pretty hellish place for over 80s.

You can, but I bank with Nationwide which is a building society so the Post Office can't take cash deposits for Nationwide accounts (which is another thing I learned today).

You can pay cash in and withdraw cash at the post office too. Might help some of you.
If you have paying in slips/envelopes you can pay cheques in at the post office too.

I should say -

i find bank staff and customer service staff anywhere to be very good in general

I especially admire them given the increased levels of rudeness they are dealing with now

I was someone who always switched banks when there's an incentive - you know when they give £100 to switch- so have dealt with most of them

they're really nice, as staff usually are. Barclays are fine too.

i just thought that saying that to mum, about getting me to bank online for her, was wrong. I bet it was an instruction from head office.

I'm guessing the bank staff would have wanted to keep their jobs too.

Utter Bollocks. Like heck they can't afford it. They've just boiled us as frogs getting used to no branches.

A City A.M. analysis of company reports shows Britain's Big Four banks – Lloyds, HSBC, Barclays and Natwest – together posted around £44.2bn in pretax profit last year, up 41 per cent from £31.4bn in 2022.

www.cityam.com/big-banks-see-record-44bn-profit-from-interest-rate-hikes/#:~:text=A%20City%20A.M.%20analysis%20of,%C2%A331.4bn%20in%202022.

If your nearest town has a banking Hub, it’s open daily for cash services. Your bank may just be there one day a week if you want to see someone face to face but the cash side is open 5 days a week. I went into my closest Banking Hub, it was very quiet despite everyone in the town wanting one.

Exactly, unless of course they introduced fees again.
All very well, the elderly normally have someone to help them.
i could argue at 62, and mid stage Parkinson’s, that folk have life much easier than me, much older, I can’t change that, nor can they

The high street is too expensive.

We have an aging demographic.

More people are banking online.

I agree you've had a rubbish experience, but banks can't afford to keep lots of branches open.

I agree that banks are very unwelcoming. I would absolutely hate to do the job of that person who stands near the door offering help.

MIL is mid 90's and lives independently. However, she is registered blind (with very limited vision) and although she manages amazingly with most things on a computer, on line banking is difficult for her. Likewise, contactless payments - which are fine when she just has to tap, but if she needs to put her PIN in, she struggles to see the numbers. She likes to withdraw a certain amount of cash from the bank each month so she can pay some people in cash and avoid on line banking. She has to do this at her local branch though. If they were to close she'd be snookered.
So I agree that modern banking practices, technology and the resulting branch closures have had a major negative effect on our more vulnerable members of society.

My mother is more than capable of using online banking but she refuses to out of principle. Same with self service check outs.

But my experience in a local branch recently (there with my mother, obvs) was that the staff were all super helpful to the mainly elderly people who were in there.

Agree with your wider points.

As an aside, I've never, ever, met anyone that banks with Barclays that likes them. And yet no one changes to somewhere better like Nationwide or Coventry etc.

I went into an unfamiliar bank branch earlier today to deposit some cash, expecting there to be an ATM where I could do so since the branches near me have them. There wasn't one, and there was one counter out of three open at 1pm - it took forever because the queue went right back to the door and I was in there for almost twenty minutes.

The man in front of me (whose conversation I could hear clearly without trying) had had his card retained by an ATM elsewhere which had also not given him his cash; he was able to come to the bank and get some while he stopped the old card and ordered a new one because there was a branch. As a PP has said, he would have been really stumped if there hadn't.

There will be many elderly who could do it 20 years ago but now can't. And that might be you one day.

Taxpayers have now made a good profit on that deal.

You are assuming everyone a) has access to the internet and b) knows how to use it.

I can think of at least 3 people from my own family for whom this is not the case. Either because they’d retired long before the early 2000s or they had jobs that didn’t require computer work (yes, there still are some of those around).

@Bluevelvetsofa yes I had that when I moved

if the solicitor wants a stamped bank statement you need a branch. I bet they all want that.

In 2008 (and before) we as taxpayers and economic units had to rush to their aid to support them, at our own personal post-tax cost, as they were too big to fail.

In return, they can't even provide a chair for an 80yo woman.

I agree. I've been using cash machines, debit and credit cards since the early 80s. I started using telephone banking (the forerunner to online banking) in the 90s. Been using online banking for at least 20 years, maybe 25, basically ever since I had internet installed at home. My first "home" computer was a ZX80 in 1980 - over 40 years ago. Most people retiring today would have been using computers (or similar electronic tills/equipment etc) during a large proportion of their working lives. They "could have" been using remote banking (telephone and internet) for the past 30 years. If they've chosen not to embrace it, then, that's on them really.

I have a lot more sympathy for those in their 90s, and maybe 80s who may have more easily "missed out" on the tech revolution, especially if they weren't working in middle age or later. I fully appreciate such people would have been in their 50s when telephone banking came in (and 60s when internet banking came in), so many would have been too old to adapt. (Although lots around that age still did embrace tech, the internet etc.)

I'd also stick my neck out and say lots of people in their 80s and 90s would still have struggled with old fashioned banking as memory starts to go, dementia starts to creep in. My MIL is 83 and is completely incapable of looking after her own money, so even if there was a bank branch outside her house, she'd not have a clue and would still need a lot of support from family, like we have to do anyway.

I'd look at things in a different way and rather than keeping banks open just for a minority of people who really don't "need" them, then have a big push to make it easier for people to help others with online banking and telephone banking - develop new systems to make it easier for family to give instructions, by better "authorisation" systems, etc.

I use the banking app and that’s fine, but recently, I had to provide a bank statement for a legal matter. I can see my bank statement on the app, but can’t print it. The only way to print it, is from a statement that I can see on an email, but can’t access it, because I need a telephone banking number, which I don’t have because I use the app.

In the end I had to go to a branch and ask them to print a copy for me. Fortunately, there’s one in a nearby town.

I also couldn’t deposit cash via the cashier. That had to be done via the machine.

i left London last year and can confirm that the banks that closed both there and in my new area had high footfall. The banks clearly want this cheaper business model.

i think banks are essential services and should be subject to some legislation for equality so people who have issues using online banking.

@EwwSprouts your point about privacy is true. Mum and I tend to think of it in terms of it being wrong because she is still capable of dealing with the bank so shouldn't be having it suggested to her that I do it. But you are right, some people will be accompanied to the bank by someone who isn't privy to their finances. I now stand back from the counter while mum talks to them. I'm only there because of her mobility issues.

I do wonder if banks will set up hubs and then charge for in person banking. That seems likely to be their next step.

it is a big problem when something goes wrong online. One of my neighbours, who always banks online, had to go to the next town and they couldn't help him. I'm not sure what happened in the end because the phone line sent him there because they couldn't help.