I don't understand why age is a get of jail free card for just refusing to do things. Fair enough not immediately jumping on every new technology but bank accounts and debit cards have been around for a long time. How does someone without either pay rent and bills?
Well this is anecdotal, but up to a few years ago, maybe ten (?), my mum used to head into the city offices of the utility companies with about 200 Euro in her handbag in cash. She didn't trust the post with a cheque, you see. So Dsis and I talked her into a debit card, Dsis took her to the bank so that the nice young bank manager could explain things to her, and then Dsis managed all the paperwork for her from her laptop, but she honestly felt so nervous about using it that she was almost to the point of bare cupboards a la Old Mother Hubbard before she ventured out to try it for the first time.
This same woman would have given her bank account details over the phone to someone with a fairly posh accent if Dsis hadn't phoned out of the blue (on the mobile Dsis got for her on Dsis' family plan, because mum finds all the mobile phone 'baggages' - i.e. 'bundles' bewildering) and interrupted the theft. Mum told Dsis to call back later because she had to get her bank account details for the lady on the landline...
At one point we thought it would be lovely for mum to have a laptop and internet access but not any more.
She is sound in mind and body, drives (long story, got her licence at age 68), lives alone and has an active social life, secretary of a club for retired people (does everything for her role by hand) - but needs monitoring because she has massive blind spots.
And yes, she now has a contactless card, but Dsis has access to her account.
But no credit card, because that is Hire Purchase and therefore a Bad Thing.
Nobody digs in their heels and 'refuses' to do things just for the heck of it or to be 'eccentric'. Some people have a lot of fears and a lack of confidence about modern technology because it came on the scene too late for them, or it had no relevance for lives spent in domestic obscurity. If they weren't able to hop aboard the digital train in the late 80s or early 90s they were often left at the station.
Some people find comfort in doing things the old, familiar way, year in, year out. Some people need that security blanket. A lot of older people have suffered a significant amount of loss in their lives - the death of siblings in childhood, relatives in wartime, economic dislocation as globalisation and de-industrialisation took place, the destruction of familiar communities which were replaced by crime ridden high rises, and the death of friends, spouses, parents, maybe even their own children, takes a huge toll - they like the predictability that comes with familiar ways of doing things, using familiar machines, the coin of the realm with Her Majesty regally making sure everything is fine and dandy.
Many were brought up in the era of make do and mend, rationing, and limited expectations in the material sense. They don't always see the merits of a phone that costs more than they put down on their house, and they have no use for the bells and whistles approach that plays such a massive part in the dazzling of today's consumer. They fear breaking expensive gadgets.
Many went to schools where creativity and the instinct to explore or even to ask questions when something didn't make sense were firmly stamped out, where they were taught Their Place above everything else, and when faced with something expensive and with an intuitive interface that assumes curiosity and invites exploration they are completely bamboozled.
In many respects some of them are more like citizens of a post Soviet world than the West.