What is it that draws people to banks?

Freecall

Now that people are starting to venture back into town centres, I am amazed at the queues forming outside of all the banks.

Presumably these are queues that would have been inside the banks pre-Covid and are just more visible but I can't help wonder what is in there that attracts all these people.

I guess that some may be trading foreign currency that they had planned to use for their holidays back into sterling but not all of them surely.

Personally I have not been into a bank for donkey's years, maybe I'm missing out.

What is it that is in there that attracts such long queues of people?

d63

Freecall said:

Now that people are starting to venture back into town centres, I am amazed at the queues forming outside of all the banks.

Presumably these are queues that would have been inside the banks pre-Covid and are just more visible but I can't help wonder what is in there that attracts all these people.

I guess that some may be trading foreign currency that they had planned to use for their holidays back into sterling but not all of them surely.

Personally I have not been into a bank for donkey's years, maybe I'm missing out.

What is it that is in there that attracts such long queues of people?

is probably just the british queue instinct kicking in, irrespective of what the queue is actually for. genetical it is, see a queue, join it. likely has come about by conferring some evolutionary advantage i guess. 

LABMAN

Banks are open for less hours with less staff and less customers allowed inside, it is reasonable that queue is longer.

Robin9

Don't forget that much of the banks business is commercial/retail/etc  and there are many shops needing to pay in takings.

Freecall

d63 said:

is probably just the british queue instinct kicking in, irrespective of what the queue is actually for. genetical it is, see a queue, join it. likely has come about by conferring some evolutionary advantage i guess. 

Actually I think that d63's theory may well be a good one.

If I am totally honest I think that deep within me I had an urge to join one of the queues myself, just in case I was missing out in some way!

Instincts run deep.

  

p00hsticks

Robin9 said:

Don't forget that much of the banks business is commercial/retail/etc  and there are many shops needing to pay in takings.

I thought these were normally paid in via the use of drop boxes in the outside walls of the banks (they always used to be). After all, for most retail outlets cashing up happens outside normal bank opening hours. So probably not a reason to queue.

eskbanker

Many of us think nothing of firing money around via apps and online banking, paying for practically everything by card or phone, and (decreasingly frequently) using ATMs for cash, etc, and correspondingly have little to no use for in-branch services, but there is a sizable (albeit declining) population who prefer to visit branches to withdraw wads of cash, to pay in cheques and so on.  At the risk of stereotyping, there are probably a larger proportion of these who are of more advanced years, and for some they're reluctant to lose the social aspect of chatting to cashiers and so on.

There are also various activities that banks still insist on handling in branch, such as verifying ID or conducting off-piste tasks like converting sole to joint accounts - there have been various recent threads about such things on here - as well as negotiating loans, mortgages, etc.

realaledrinker

Given the 50,000 excess deaths reported this Spring, there will be a fair number trying to get certified copies, deal with registering death certificates, probate etc.  Much easier done face to face if possible.

Freecall

realaledrinker said:

Given the 50,000 excess deaths reported this Spring, there will be a fair number trying to get certified copies, deal with registering death certificates, probate etc.  Much easier done face to face if possible.

I think that 'a fair number' might be a bit of an exaggeration.

50,000 dealing with such paperwork out of 66 million is about 7 for every 10,000 of the population.  I doubt that my local town centre has more than about 1,000 people on the high street at any one time at present so that's potentially about one of them doing that.

Zanderman

LABMAN said:

Banks are open for less hours with less staff and less customers allowed inside, it is reasonable that queue is longer.

This ^ . 
Combined with the fact that, despite what those of who use online banking/apps for virtually everything like to think, there are still a lot of people who use banks face to face. 
My nearest branches of both Lloyds and NatWest for instance, on the rare occasions in the last 18 months or so I've entered inside, always have queues.  Short ones admittedly, but queues. Due in part, probably, to the fact that the number of branches has reduced in recent years.
Those queues are of people who use banks - either by preference over online or for practical reasons of needing to be there in person.
Add to all that the point by LABMAN above - that opening hours are cut and staff reduced during the covid crisis, and you have longer queues, spilling outside with social distancing.  
It's not a surprise.
It would be surprising it if wasn't happening.

schiff

Virgin stores are very useful for a sit down and a cup of tea or coffee