An old-fashioned Bank?

p00hsticks

Ah yes, those good old fashioned banks where you spent all of your Friday lunchtime queueuing to cash a cheque so that you had money for the weekend, and if you blew it all on the Friday night then you stayed in until Monday as there was no way of getting any more.....

msallen

p00hsticks said:

Ah yes, those good old fashioned banks where you spent all of your Friday lunchtime queueuing to cash a cheque so that you had money for the weekend, and if you blew it all on the Friday night then you stayed in until Monday as there was no way of getting any more.....

... and paid for the privilege of cashing a cheque. 
Of course the introduction of ATMs meant you could avoid the queue, but of course you still had to pay every time you used it.

What ever happened to barber-surgeons? Nowadays I have to visit two different establishments to get a hair cut and an amputation.

blue.peter

msallen said:

Of course the introduction of ATMs meant you could avoid the queue, but of course you still had to pay every time you used it.

Really? I've been using ATMs since 1978 (when Barclays gave you a wallet of paper vouchers to put in a drawer in the machine), and don't recall ever having to pay to use them.

msallen

blue.peter said:

msallen said:

Of course the introduction of ATMs meant you could avoid the queue, but of course you still had to pay every time you used it.

Really? I've been using ATMs since 1978 (when Barclays gave you a wallet of paper vouchers to put in a drawer in the machine), and don't recall ever having to pay to use them.

Absolutely. I can't remember the exact amounts but I remember paying something like 30p per cheque but only 20p per ATM withdrawal - i.e. it was cheaper than a cheque. That was with NatWest around 1980ish.

blue.peter

msallen said:

Absolutely. I can't remember the exact amounts but I remember paying something like 30p per cheque but only 20p per ATM withdrawal - i.e. it was cheaper than a cheque. That was with NatWest around 1980ish.

OK. Must have been specific to that bank - and maybe one or two others - then. I was with Barclays 1978 - 1990 and First Direct (i.e., Midland/HSBC) through the 1990s and 2000s, and was never charged for withdrawals from my account holding banks' own machines. To be fair, though, I do recall one or two periods when I would have been charged for using ATMs owned by other banks.

I do recall a period when some banks charged for cheque payments, though. They found that they lost so many customers to "free" banks that they soon backed off.

RobM99

Back to the point - the Post Office offers a range of banking services to most high-street banks.

xylophone

I remember my father telling me not to leave "savings" (ie money over and above day to day needs) in the bank but to open a building society account paying decent interest.....

Fighter1986

Ahh I'm late to the party reminiscing about the halcyon days of banking and borrowing.

Rewind to 2007 when Abbey National were kind enough to lend me a 97% LTV mortgage at 6.9% APR and give me a regular saver account at 10% APR.

It literally paid to be in debt in those days. 

Nebulous2

A nursing colleague told me that her bank wouldn't give her a mortgage, as she was a single woman. She had asked twice and been told no both times. Probably 1960s, though could have been very early 70s. 

Then one day she got a phonecall asking her to go in and see the manager. Another customer locally had bought a flat and was unable to pay his mortgage. She was told she could have the flat if she agreed to take on the mortgage. 

When she was telling this story she was still very grateful for the opportunity she had been given. She couldn't understand why I was shocked by it. Her point was - times have changed, I was given a mortgage at a time when it was very difficult for women to get a mortgage. 

Katiehound

I remember years ago getting charged for being overdrawn by one day because something had gone wrong. Actually I think it was something I bought from Comet & they couldn't take a credit card because it was a home delivery (replacing a faulty item) so I had to pay by cheque. Result: overdrawn. 
 Next day my salary went in, as it did every month on the same day.

Needless to say I wrote to complain to the manager. At that point I was told that they paid 1% interest- my account was always in the black- and that cancelled out the charge. When I asked why they weren't paying interest for the rest of the years no one seemed able to answer!!
So interest only paid if you defaulted.

At one point I was told that the bank manager wanted to meet me but I never did arrange that meeting!
So I'll never know if I was going to offered some wonderful deal: I doubt it!!
 
Some years later I had an account with Ulster Bank in ROI and the assistant manager always knew my Christian name and happily greeted me. That only changed when I moved banks. When I moved back the personnel manager, if that was her role always greeted me (but not by name) until I closed the account this year.

I recognise staff in my local banks when I go in (rarely) but I don't know their names: it's impersonal these days.