Sad about bank closures

[CallCollect]

Another suburban bank I've got fond memories of is closing soon - one I've got a fond memory of opening an account back in 2008. It's in a sort of 'suburban high street' - ish /small shopping area.

I feel so many of the 'big 4' have closed since around 2010 - not in the city centres and larger town centres perhaps but in villages/smaller towns and suburban high streets.

AIBU to feel a bit sad about this ?

Did you actually use the branch, or are you like most people who've whinged about the closure of their local pub or corner shop they barely use? Use it or lose it! Why do people expect everyone else to use these businesses but want them only for their own very occasional convenience?

There's no money in branch banking anymore - the ones left in the bank I work for are generally running at a loss and only remain open because of a number of legislative requirements to provide a service in each County.

With the introduction of new banking hubs - largely automated facilities for a number of banks - and the growing contracts with the Post Office, the end is nigh. I'd be surprised if there are any branches of any bank at all left in 15 years.

*I recently went into a ‘big 4’ city high street bank, first time in years as knew it was something I couldn’t do online. Bank I’ve been with for years who have access to all my data/accounts. Opening an account for a pre-teen. This is my experience:

Queue to see the customer service counter
Tells me I need an appt to open the account
An appt will be 3 weeks (!) Not great but not urgent please book me in
Faffing around then tells me she can’t do it as she’s from another branch and doesn’t have access, I need to queue again
I’ve wasted over 20 mins and huge queue for the tellers so leave

Go in later in the week and manage to get an appt in 3 days time. Great?! I know think 3 days is beating the system, see what they did there?

Go to appointment hoping for 3rd time
lucky, armed with A LOT of proof of identify for both me and DC as requested
Took over an hour to enter information for an account for an 10 year old WITHOUT a debit card that I’m a trustee for. He’s walking in and out of the room endlessly, to a printer to give me reams of paper which is mostly irrelevant for the account
At the last minute I’m told because I have a different surname to DC I can’t do it
I was less than pleased. Luckily had a mortgage statement that has my and the (same) fathers surname jointly with our address. He agrees to ‘see the manager’ which is another 20 mins wait and apparently I’m given permission. “Thanks, I’m so grateful” 😡

Well if you’ve got this far you have more patience than I did that day. Absolutely shocking customer service, can never get through on the phone either. It’s no surprise they’re closing. No one wants to go in and they don’t want you in there either. Just give us all your money, we’ll charge you and if you could never bother us again that’s be great.*

This was similar to my experience 3 yrs ago pre COVID opening an account for a child. Haven't found the strength to open an account for a 2nd child!!!

Perhaps customers in that posh suburb actually use the branch???

I found a contactless cash card on the ground in the park a few days ago. I know these are complicated to cancel, so I put it in my purse, intending to hand it in at a branch of that bank, asap.

I was going into the city centre, so no problam, I thought.

Except, there was no branch of that big, popular bank

So I thought, well, I will hand it in to another bank, they will have some procedure or other for dealing with each others cards

There was no other bank either.

I did find a cash machine and contemplated just feeding it in, but was afraid I might get videoed, and thought to be attempting to steal

In the end, I just rang the lost and stolen number on the card when I got home, and they confirmed there was no branch I could travel to it and asked me to cut it up

My main worry with automatisation (is that the word I’m looking for?) is error correction. We entrust our whole livelihoods to a computer who can say what we can and cannot do, according to algorithms. We are not algorithms. You can’t reason with a machine. A machine can’t and shouldn’t make decisions.

I understand that opening a bank account online is quicker and more convenient. I really like that, because it frees time. Everything these days frees time: my car, my phone, my washing machine, my hoover, my audible, my FaceTime. (They all rely on electricity. What the fuck do we do when the power goes down? Who controls the electricity, cause it’s not state owned?)

But what do we do with all this free time? We work for most of it. What kind of jobs will our children have? And are we really that much happier? Because an ever emerging theme is loneliness and poor mental health. It’s a bit like the wire monkey experiment

Not fond memories but the impracticality is driving me nuts. My teenage daughter is paid cash from her weekend/after school job. All I want to do is pay cash into the bank. We still use cash. A lot of time and effort is being made to print the king's head on it all for god's sake! But can I actually pay it into the bank without a 30 mile round trip to the nearest one ... no I can't!

I'm with you, OP - I also feel sad to see these institutions disappearing. And as for "When did you last go in?", I used to go in to pay in cheques, resolve queries etc, until they closed all the staffed windows and installed telephones you can use to call the same number you would call from home.

Bank branches are closed yet large head offices remain. Parts of the branches could be used to host a team that is at head office, given many people at the bank no doubtless have hybrid working.

Cost of maintaining branches would be reduced, and it could even be practical to open them for a limited number of days each week.

Me too, it's really mucked up my Modus Operandi.

I hate this telephone scamming I have to do now - people can be so rude to me.

😞

If the account you’re trying to pay it into has a debit card then you can do this at a post office.

Sign of the times, I suppose. I don’t feel sad about it, but it does make me nostalgic when I think more generally about how high streets have changed.

I moved into my area (London suburb) in 2007. We had a branch of each of the big four banks. Now there is only one, and it has been reconfigured with only two cashiers and loads of self service machines. It’s also only open 9.30-3.30 four days a week.

There was also a big, busy post office, various clothes shops (big brands and independent), a Woolies, an M&S. All now gone. Now it’s wall to wall chain coffee/fast food places and pound shops.

The banks don’t personally bother me. I use online banking for almost everything, and the self service machines to pay in cash (although would be better if they were accessible earlier/later in the day). But the high street has less soul and sense of community.

But

If you can find a post office. There's a small post office kiosk in our area inside a local supermarket, its often closed. If you need to collect something from the post office then you need to go to the main office which if you don't have a car is three bus changes.

A post above mentioned a collective banking hub - these now exist - albeit there are only a few and they are operated by the post office
Banking hubs

I do 95% of banking online, but I still go to the bank relatively frequently - cheques that the app can't read, or exceed the limit that can be paid via app, paying in cash, dealing with mortgage etc.
DH wanted to open a savings account - with decent interest - that could only be opened in store. He got there before the bank opened on a Saturday and there was already a queue of people. He waited an hour and a half to see someone and they had to tell others to come back another day. Last time I went into Halifax on a Saturday, the queue was huge so not entirely true that no one uses banks any more.

@taxguru I last used my local suburban high street branch - hmm I would say last December

My elderly mum doesn't do online banking. Actually she doesn't do anything online and has no internet. As she doesn't get out She relies on me to set up her direct debits and gives me her card to get cash out, go to the bank to print out statements for her etc so I go into the branch in our local town to do this. It is always busy with queues so I think it is wrong to say that branches aren't needed.

we don't do online banking either but admittedly we're more than capable of using the machines in branch to do what we need.

I agree that a lot of people seem to be using building societies or moving accounts to Metrobank. All places which have a high street presence.

@taxguru I agree. But my village has a large population of retirees and SAHPs. On the rare occasions I went into our much smaller local branch there was always a queue. I think we also kept the staff well occupied.

I'm annoyed by it. The branch in my rural town is closing. It's nice to be able to pop in there and talk to a human if there is a problem. I recently bought a house and it was invaluable being able to go in there to make the transfers. Would have been a right pain to drive to the next town.

I wonder how much it costs per customer to keep them open? It's a service that's worth money to me, now gone with no choice.

I tried to go into a branch to open an account for my son. None of the local ones were open on a Saturday. The one that was didn’t have any available appointments. They also all close before I could get him there in the week…