Lloyds Bank ISA

Clive_Woody

My 81 year old mum does not do online banking and this won't change, she wants to manage things in a branch with some human interaction. She currently has the best part of £30k sat in her Club Lloyds current account earning pretty much no interest on most of it. She has a local branch of Lloyds and their website says you can open an ISA in branch but she just spoke to a customer service bod and he said you can no longer open an ISA in a Lloyds branch and their website is wrong. He told her she would have to do it online.

Is this correct?

eskbanker

Certainly worth a complaint - if one of the website and adviser is right and the other wrong then that isn't acceptable whichever way round applies....

https://www.lloydsbank.com/help-guidance/how-to-complain.html

refluxer

I would expect that the chances of that member of staff being wrong are higher than the website being wrong.

Was she actually in the branch when she spoke to them or was it via a phone call ?

maman

Just a thought, although not specially about Lloyd's ISA. 

When speaking to Lloyd's customer services on the phone earlier this week on another matter , I was offered a review of my finances. This apparently would be a teams/zoom appointment for which they would send me a link. I said I'd prefer to go into a branch and it transpired that all that would mean is that they would help me to get a Teams appointment in branch using my smartphone in one of the offices. I explained that it wasn't that I couldn't use Teams without their help, I just didn't want to.

So, possibly this sort of arrangement is what they mean about opening an ISA in branch.

Incidentally, they say in the website that Customer Service is available until 8 pm but I found they close at 6pm so errors on the website do exist. 

clairec666

My 70 year old mum is also reluctant to "do online" and has trouble getting banks to respect her wishes. Mostly they try to coerce her into opening an online account and she has to repeatedly insist that she gets a passbook/branch account as offered on their website. Not with Lloyds in particular, but banks are doing this to older customers quite a lot. She eventually had success with Yorkshire, but the interest rate isn't great.

poseidon1

clairec666 said:

My 70 year old mum is also reluctant to "do online" and has trouble getting banks to respect her wishes. Mostly they try to coerce her into opening an online account and she has to repeatedly insist that she gets a passbook/branch account as offered on their website. Not with Lloyds in particular, but banks are doing this to older customers quite a lot. She eventually had success with Yorkshire, but the interest rate isn't great.

You can't have missed the fact that all banks with the notable exception of Nationwide have been on an inexorable push to close branches all over the UK, regardless of the needs of their vulnerable or tech cautious customer base.

For the banks the cost savings ( and resulting increase to profitability ) is their only yardstick when looking at their branch network.

If an elderly person wants reliable access to helpful high street banking, Nationwide remains their best bet.  In a couple of towns I have visited it is now the only bank branch in operation.

Ordinary_Yet_Unique

Whilst I can appreciate reluctance by some to do online banking it really so much easier and convenient once it has been set up.

My mother is nearly 86 and does online banking quite happily. She recently caried out a successful switch to Nationwide and was pleased to earn herself  a little bonus. She also uses apple-pay without difficulty.

In my opinion it is wrong to assume that online banking is something that a lot of older people are reluctant to operate. Assistance from relatives or friends to set it up and give assurance is usually all that is required.

Over time branch banking will gradually disappear whatever people may.

I also disagree that older people find technology difficult. I feel that such a view does them a disservice.

I see so many older people daily using their smart phones quite happily.

retiredbanker1

Lloyds have 'tranches' of customers.
The lowest in the pecking order would be Basic account customers who do not qualify for any credit facilities.
Then there are those where the bank does not think it can cross-sell other products to to make more profits from you. Your mum may fall into that category. (Possibly too old for investments or credit facilities?)

Now if she was to phone again for an appointment asking for a home insurance review and a savings review (be as vague as possible on the phone) then you might find their position change??

clairec666

Ordinary_Yet_Unique said:

Whilst I can appreciate reluctance by some to do online banking it really so much easier and convenient once it has been set up.

My mother is nearly 86 and does online banking quite happily. She recently caried out a successful switch to Nationwide and was pleased to earn herself  a little bonus. She also uses apple-pay without difficulty.

In my opinion it is wrong to assume that online banking is something that a lot of older people are reluctant. Assistance from relatives or friends to set it up and give assurance is usually all that is required.

Over time branch banking will gradually disappear whatever people may.

I also disagree that older people find technology difficult. I feel that such a view does them a disservice.

I see so many older people daily using their smart phones quite happily.

Most older people would be able to cope with online banking in some form, a lot already do it independently, and many have more tech-savvy relatives who can offer support. I've offered help to my mum, who's not particularly confident with technology but knows how to send an email and do basic things on a smartphone. She remains reluctant to bank online, and lives in a large enough town to have a choice of banks which still have branches, so I won't push it any further.

I'm glad Nationwide are making an effort to buck the trend and keep branches open. At some point though I imagine it will no longer be cost-effective for them.

poseidon1

clairec666 said:

Ordinary_Yet_Unique said:

Whilst I can appreciate reluctance by some to do online banking it really so much easier and convenient once it has been set up.

My mother is nearly 86 and does online banking quite happily. She recently caried out a successful switch to Nationwide and was pleased to earn herself  a little bonus. She also uses apple-pay without difficulty.

In my opinion it is wrong to assume that online banking is something that a lot of older people are reluctant. Assistance from relatives or friends to set it up and give assurance is usually all that is required.

Over time branch banking will gradually disappear whatever people may.

I also disagree that older people find technology difficult. I feel that such a view does them a disservice.

I see so many older people daily using their smart phones quite happily.

Most older people would be able to cope with online banking in some form, a lot already do it independently, and many have more tech-savvy relatives who can offer support. I've offered help to my mum, who's not particularly confident with technology but knows how to send an email and do basic things on a smartphone. She remains reluctant to bank online, and lives in a large enough town to have a choice of banks which still have branches, so I won't push it any further.

I'm glad Nationwide are making an effort to buck the trend and keep branches open. At some point though I imagine it will no longer be cost-effective for them.

As the largest mutual building society in the UK they are not a commercial bank answerable to shareholders, although they do have the commercial muscle to takeover a bank when the opportunity presents ( the Virgin Bank takeover is an example).

They can therefore differentiate themselves from commercial banks in continuing to offer point of service branch services when other banks decide driving profit to the bottom line is far more important than offering an holistic banking service.

The challenge Nationwide face in decades to come is to what extent branch based services will be required by the younger generation now being wooed by the emerging neo banks such as Monza. Those tech savvy youngsters will be the elderly of the future, Nationwide will need to address how to capture a slice of that market, if they wish to stay relevant. At that point continuing to offer branch services when no one wants it will be pointless,

maman

I take your point @poseidon1 but if you take it further then I think even tech savvy youngsters get fed up with online companies when things go wrong and it's impossible to speak to anyone but a useless chat bot or send an email into the ether.

I'm not saying that branches will be necessary but if banks continue to cut back on customer service and keep pushing everyone to do everything online then both young and old will be increasingly frustrated.