Lloyds Close More Branches While Their Online Banking Fails

ChirpyChicken

MABLE said:

My local Lloyds branch use to support a fully fledged manager , his deputy and chief clerk.  Now it has only few staff and now only opens 4 days a week and reduced hours.  

I have been at this branch for 40 years but at least it hasn’t closed down.  However I now do all my banking online.

banking has changed beyond recognition 

ChirpyChicken

DasTechniker said:

Nasqueron said:

PocketWatchMan said:

TheBanker said:

Hoenir said:

karvala said:

Yet another example of profits before service and "customer can lump it" corporate mentality.  

Retail current accounts in the UK are a free service therefore cost money. Would you prefer the international model of a monthly £10 - £15 charge?  I would as have very rarely used a branch in the past 30 years.  

I often wonder if the people who want branches to stay open would be happy to pay a transaction fee per visit to cover the costs of operating the branch. 

I looked at a fact sheet for one of the Lloyds branches that's closing. It says the branch has 901 regular customers. Assume the branch has three staff on £30k a year, that's a cost of £100 per customer per year simply to pay the wages. They'll also need to pay all the costs associated with employees i.e. pension contributions, National Insurance, sick pay, as well as paying for the lease/maintinance/utility supplies/insurance/cash deliveries and collections/etc.

I know the way they've calcuated the number of customers is open to challenge, but there is just no way this branch can break even unless these customers are very wealthy or paying high fees.

I often wonder if the people who bank online, have any idea of the scale and simplicity that criminals can commit ID theft and fraud.  I often wonder if the people who bank online ever take time to think, that in the milliseconds taken to blink their eyes, at least two online accounts somewhere will have been breached. Just in terms of pure statistics, if you have not been a victim of serious online theft in the last 4-5 years, you are technically way overdue.

None of these issues are fixed by having branches, indeed, people being conned and going into branches to get money happens. ID theft and fraud happened before online banking. Online systems are far more secure e.g. 2FA to setup new payees, automatic fraud checks and stopping payments etc. Or gullible person goes into a bank to take out £500 and give it to a crypto scammer and that money is gone.

Most people are not victims of "serious online theft", no-one is overdue.

A little story: About 30 years ago my daughter was going on holiday with her friend and as a gift I said that I would pay. So, in those days my daughter didn’t have the means to pay the travel agent, so I went to my bank (NatWest), and drew cash over the counter. When my daughter handed over the money, it was found to be counterfeit. As the travel agent knew my daughter, she handed back the cash - which she should have impounded - and I had a word with the branch manager. Profound apologies all round, the cashier should have spotted the fakes. So even in branch you can get tucked up! 🫣

did you get it replaced ha

UKX69

ChirpyChicken said:

DasTechniker said:

Nasqueron said:

PocketWatchMan said:

TheBanker said:

Hoenir said:

karvala said:

Yet another example of profits before service and "customer can lump it" corporate mentality.  

Retail current accounts in the UK are a free service therefore cost money. Would you prefer the international model of a monthly £10 - £15 charge?  I would as have very rarely used a branch in the past 30 years.  

I often wonder if the people who want branches to stay open would be happy to pay a transaction fee per visit to cover the costs of operating the branch. 

I looked at a fact sheet for one of the Lloyds branches that's closing. It says the branch has 901 regular customers. Assume the branch has three staff on £30k a year, that's a cost of £100 per customer per year simply to pay the wages. They'll also need to pay all the costs associated with employees i.e. pension contributions, National Insurance, sick pay, as well as paying for the lease/maintinance/utility supplies/insurance/cash deliveries and collections/etc.

I know the way they've calcuated the number of customers is open to challenge, but there is just no way this branch can break even unless these customers are very wealthy or paying high fees.

I often wonder if the people who bank online, have any idea of the scale and simplicity that criminals can commit ID theft and fraud.  I often wonder if the people who bank online ever take time to think, that in the milliseconds taken to blink their eyes, at least two online accounts somewhere will have been breached. Just in terms of pure statistics, if you have not been a victim of serious online theft in the last 4-5 years, you are technically way overdue.

None of these issues are fixed by having branches, indeed, people being conned and going into branches to get money happens. ID theft and fraud happened before online banking. Online systems are far more secure e.g. 2FA to setup new payees, automatic fraud checks and stopping payments etc. Or gullible person goes into a bank to take out £500 and give it to a crypto scammer and that money is gone.

Most people are not victims of "serious online theft", no-one is overdue.

A little story: About 30 years ago my daughter was going on holiday with her friend and as a gift I said that I would pay. So, in those days my daughter didn’t have the means to pay the travel agent, so I went to my bank (NatWest), and drew cash over the counter. When my daughter handed over the money, it was found to be counterfeit. As the travel agent knew my daughter, she handed back the cash - which she should have impounded - and I had a word with the branch manager. Profound apologies all round, the cashier should have spotted the fakes. So even in branch you can get tucked up! 🫣

did you get it replaced ha

Yes, I did. 😅

GingerTim

eskbanker said:

PocketWatchMan said:

I often wonder if the people who bank online, have any idea of the scale and simplicity that criminals can commit ID theft and fraud.  I often wonder if the people who bank online ever take time to think, that in the milliseconds taken to blink their eyes, at least two online accounts somewhere will have been breached. Just in terms of pure statistics, if you have not been a victim of serious online theft in the last 4-5 years, you are technically way overdue.

Where exactly are you sourcing these statistics from?

Source: trust me, bro.

Hoenir

TheBanker said:

Hoenir said:

karvala said:

Yet another example of profits before service and "customer can lump it" corporate mentality.  

Retail current accounts in the UK are a free service therefore cost money. Would you prefer the international model of a monthly £10 - £15 charge?  I would as have very rarely used a branch in the past 30 years.  

I often wonder if the people who want branches to stay open would be happy to pay a transaction fee per visit to cover the costs of operating the branch. 

I looked at a fact sheet for one of the Lloyds branches that's closing. It says the branch has 901 regular customers. Assume the branch has three staff on £30k a year, that's a cost of £100 per customer per year simply to pay the wages. They'll also need to pay all the costs associated with employees i.e. pension contributions, National Insurance, sick pay, as well as paying for the lease/maintinance/utility supplies/insurance/cash deliveries and collections/etc.

I know the way they've calcuated the number of customers is open to challenge, but there is just no way this branch can break even unless these customers are very wealthy or paying high fees.

Be more than 3 staff. The 3 staff would take 66 annual leave days between them and then there's training, sickness, maternity, paternity leave to cover.  Then there's property rent, rates, maintenance of various kinds, insurance, heat and light, telephone, cost of third party security services. The list goes on. Cost of running even the smallest branch is probably approaching £500k a year. 

karvala

KittenChops said:

karvala said:

It was today announced that Lloyds Bank are closing more branches because apparently everyone is doing their banking online and all much prefer it.  I'm that would be great, except for the fact that the technology frequently fails.  What are people supposed to do then?

This week I have had to make two payments to new recipients.  Both people I know, both totally reliable, neither for outrageously large sums.  What happened?

1. For the first one, the recipient details were confirmed and all matched etc, but they needed to call me to verify it was me setting up the new recipient (standard process, fair enough).  Problem was, they couldn't because the Three network was down and calls were not getting through.  Sure, that wasn't the banks fault but they have no backup system in that situation (such as logging on to the website), so you simply can't pay someone.
2. For the second one, the recipient details were confirmed and all matched again, but the website insisted that I needed to update my phone number to the "latest one".  I have not changed my phone number, my correct phone number was and still is visible in my account profile and on the app, so there was nothing to correct it to.  But the system says no, and will not allow any new recipients to proceed until I've given a different phone to the one that is actually mine.  Go figure.  So I phoned up the internet banking people, who proceeded to try themselves only to admit after 4-5 attempts that they couldn't even get as far as verifying the recipient details with their bank, even though they were definitely correct.

It's all very well closing branches and pointing people to the website and app, but when they are so clearly unreliable, what are people supposed to do?  Yet another example of profits before service and "customer can lump it" corporate mentality.  Will be looking for another bank now, but struggling to find any that aren't equally useless.

I wonder if the two issues are related?  You say in point 1 that the bank needed to call you but couldn't because the three network was down - could that have triggered something on your account to say that your phone number must therefore be out of date as it wouldn't connect?

That's certainly possible, but the Three outage resulted in calls going straight to voicemail apparently, and indeed my call log subsequently showed missed calls (that never rang in practice), so it probably wouldn't trigger a no-connection warning, but I guess after X missed calls it is is possible it could do something like that.

etienneg

karvala said:

 - and I remember some of the more spectacular banking failures of recent years such as the TSB outage that lasted for days (and weeks for some customers).  If there were no branches, what were their customers supposed to do?

The general wisdom is to have a second account available for such an eventuality - rather like carrying a spare wheel in your car. There are often simple things people can do to help themselves.

kinger101

DasTechniker said:

Nasqueron said:

PocketWatchMan said:

TheBanker said:

Hoenir said:

karvala said:

Yet another example of profits before service and "customer can lump it" corporate mentality.  

Retail current accounts in the UK are a free service therefore cost money. Would you prefer the international model of a monthly £10 - £15 charge?  I would as have very rarely used a branch in the past 30 years.  

I often wonder if the people who want branches to stay open would be happy to pay a transaction fee per visit to cover the costs of operating the branch. 

I looked at a fact sheet for one of the Lloyds branches that's closing. It says the branch has 901 regular customers. Assume the branch has three staff on £30k a year, that's a cost of £100 per customer per year simply to pay the wages. They'll also need to pay all the costs associated with employees i.e. pension contributions, National Insurance, sick pay, as well as paying for the lease/maintinance/utility supplies/insurance/cash deliveries and collections/etc.

I know the way they've calcuated the number of customers is open to challenge, but there is just no way this branch can break even unless these customers are very wealthy or paying high fees.

I often wonder if the people who bank online, have any idea of the scale and simplicity that criminals can commit ID theft and fraud.  I often wonder if the people who bank online ever take time to think, that in the milliseconds taken to blink their eyes, at least two online accounts somewhere will have been breached. Just in terms of pure statistics, if you have not been a victim of serious online theft in the last 4-5 years, you are technically way overdue.

None of these issues are fixed by having branches, indeed, people being conned and going into branches to get money happens. ID theft and fraud happened before online banking. Online systems are far more secure e.g. 2FA to setup new payees, automatic fraud checks and stopping payments etc. Or gullible person goes into a bank to take out £500 and give it to a crypto scammer and that money is gone.

Most people are not victims of "serious online theft", no-one is overdue.

A little story: About 30 years ago my daughter was going on holiday with her friend and as a gift I said that I would pay. So, in those days my daughter didn’t have the means to pay the travel agent, so I went to my bank (NatWest), and drew cash over the counter. When my daughter handed over the money, it was found to be counterfeit. As the travel agent knew my daughter, she handed back the cash - which she should have impounded - and I had a word with the branch manager. Profound apologies all round, the cashier should have spotted the fakes. So even in branch you can get tucked up! 🫣

I remember handing in a forged fiver I at my local police station.  I'd acquired it the night before (a genuine £10 note underneath so I couldn't feel it at the time).  Gosh, that's going back. Hand over a £20 and more than £15 change from a pint of bitter and half a cider.

I took it to the police station as someone told me they refund me if I handed in the fake.  A 17 year ild can be quite gullible.

After a very long time explaining it was obviously fake because it had no watermark, no foil strip, the colours were wrong and it felt completely wrong in the hand I was just about able to convince a rather dim PC.

I didn't get my £5 back and they didn't believe the likely culprit worked in the bar.  Because nobody could hand over just the forged note to anyone who  handled cash for a living.

She was perplexed as to why someone would forge £5.

karvala

etienneg said:

karvala said:

 - and I remember some of the more spectacular banking failures of recent years such as the TSB outage that lasted for days (and weeks for some customers).  If there were no branches, what were their customers supposed to do?

The general wisdom is to have a second account available for such an eventuality - rather like carrying a spare wheel in your car. There are often simple things people can do to help themselves.

Right, so we need to open, administer and keep funds in two different bank accounts because the banks want to close their branches while being unable to offer reliable technology to replace it?  You seriously regard this as a reasonable solution?  It's not like carrying a spare wheel - that is a solution provided by the manufacturer of the car to replace functionality when their equipment fails.  Banking equivalent?  Keeping your branch open.  What you're suggesting is buying a second car for the times that the first fails to work as advertised.  That's not something I would do.

karvala

For those who are convinced that the technology is super reliable, here we are again: Barclays hit by major IT outage, customers unable to make or receive payments.  

Meanwhile, I was on the phone to Halifax yesterday about insurance and their internal systems were down again; the representative had to phone me two hours later once they were back up.

This technolgoy is simply not reliable for such a critical function and backup systems - such as branches - must remain in place.