Banking Je Ne Sais Quoi

A_Flock_Of_Sheep

I remember a time when banking had a certain Je Ne Sais Quoi about it.

Quality attentive service, decent branch service and none of the press 1,2,3,4 call centres.

Where did it all go wrong?

ses6jwg

Did you get those rose-tinted specs on special offer?

Valli

decent branch service?

well yes IF you could get into town during the week because, of course, there were no ATMs, they weren't open on a weekend. Being paid by cheque then having to go and withdraw it was a faff!

so now we have internet access
ATMs
debit cards
banks open for longer
direct payments

not gone WRONG IMO - just changed to keep pace with technology!

equitydealer

A_Flock_Of_Sheep wrote: »

I remember a time when banking had a certain Je Ne Sais Quoi about it.

Quality attentive service, decent branch service and none of the press 1,2,3,4 call centres.

Where did it all go wrong?

depends who you bank with, e.g. you don't get the press 1,2,3 etc call centres with First Direct

interbear

Valli wrote: »

decent branch service?

well yes IF you could get into town during the week because, of course, there were no ATMs, they weren't open on a weekend. Being paid by cheque then having to go and withdraw it was a faff!

so now we have internet access
ATMs
debit cards
banks open for longer
direct payments

not gone WRONG IMO - just changed to keep pace with technology!

Spot on. And I agree with the tech progress. Good 24/7 online banking, debit cards, ATMs, faster payments are far more valuable to me than branch services.

JuicyJesus

A_Flock_Of_Sheep wrote: »

Where did it all go wrong?

About the same time people started treating banking services as a god given right which they should never, ever be charged for and started trying to weasel out of terms they'd signed up to.

As others say, I'm far happier with online/telephone banking and all the various other electronic means of managing my money. Quicker and less effort for me.

walesrob

Back in 1986 when I opened my first account with the Black Horse Bank, I seem to remember the branches being awful stuffy places with staff giving you the impression you were wasting their time with your pathetic £5 or £10 deposit. I also remember going 2p overdrawn and then being called in to see the Manager and getting a lecture about handling money properly. Any requests for an overdraft were met with 'no we couldn't possibly do that'. One thing that stuck in my mind was that during that meeting, the manager left the room for a few minutes and had left open on his desk some kind of account conduct report with some kind of secret police logging of all my activities with the bank - entries like "This Young Man came in today at blah blah time and withdrew ££ cash", "This Young Man is not to be trusted with money and he is high risk to the Bank due to his low salary" (back then I was a shelf filler on £50 a week)

Then one day I received a rather large windfall, paid it in, then a few months later, withdrew nearly all of that money, quickly followed by a letter from Mr Black Horse Manager asking where was the money I had deposited and I was expected to pay it back in. The bank has probably changed for the better now, but I'd rather cut off my toes than trust my money to that bank. I've used Midland/HSBC since 1988 never had a problem at all.

CLAPTON

walesrob wrote: »

Back in 1986 when I opened my first account with the Black Horse Bank, I seem to remember the branches being awful stuffy places with staff giving you the impression you were wasting their time with your pathetic £5 or £10 deposit. I also remember going 2p overdrawn and then being called in to see the Manager and getting a lecture about handling money properly. Any requests for an overdraft were met with 'no we couldn't possibly do that'. One thing that stuck in my mind was that during that meeting, the manager left the room for a few minutes and had left open on his desk some kind of account conduct report with some kind of secret police logging of all my activities with the bank - entries like "This Young Man came in today at blah blah time and withdrew ££ cash", "This Young Man is not to be trusted with money and he is high risk to the Bank due to his low salary" (back then I was a shelf filler on £50 a week)

Then one day I received a rather large windfall, paid it in, then a few months later, withdrew nearly all of that money, quickly followed by a letter from Mr Black Horse Manager asking where was the money I had deposited and I was expected to pay it back in. The bank has probably changed for the better now, but I'd rather cut off my toes than trust my money to that bank. I've used Midland/HSBC since 1988 never had a problem at all.

if banks had continued to discourage overdrafts and silly lending, millions of people would now be vastly better off.

ses6jwg

CLAPTON wrote: »

if banks had continued to discourage overdrafts and silly lending, millions of people would now be vastly better off.

Millions of small business would also have been unable to get off the ground because Joe Bloggs the Tradesman would have been deemed "unworthy" of credit facilities.

CLAPTON

ses6jwg wrote: »

Millions of small business would also have been unable to get off the ground because Joe Bloggs the Tradesman would have been deemed "unworthy" of credit facilities.

I felt that the context was one of personal rather than business borrowing and unsecured rather than secured
and I used the word 'discouraged' too

check out the average unsecured debt of the average (non business) person in the UK?
do you really think that is a good thing?

[Deleted User]

CLAPTON wrote: »

I felt that the context was one of personal rather than business borrowing and unsecured rather than secured
and I used the word 'discouraged' too

check out the average unsecured debt of the average (non business) person in the UK?
do you really think that is a good thing?

defo not a good thing the unsecured debt
tech progress defo improving with also contactless debit cards rolling out to banks soon (barclays have and tsb pilot london)