Don't be fooled by cunning con artists
Comments
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So, are you suggesting that they're not making enough adjustments to comply with the Equality Act? If so, then that would presumably be unlawful and you should report them to the relevant authorities....Cornucopia wrote: »Ideally, they would provide reasonable adjustments to suit the needs of all customers with disabilities or vulnerabilities. In fact, doesn't the Equality Act require that of them?
Not per se, but by virtue of product range. If someone is looking for a safe place to deposit their savings via a branch, and maybe get a mortgage, then local building societies will be able to satisfy those requirements and as smallish businesses probably don't aspire to grow in scale beyond serving their local market in that way. However, if someone wants access to overdrafts, credit cards, direct debits, faster payments, online services, apps, etc, etc, then that does entail compliance with a greater range of regulation.Cornucopia wrote: »Indeed, and I've been using the word institution at times, by which I mean the entire range of bodies that provided retail financial services to the general public.
Are you saying that Banks are somehow more constrained by regulation than Building Societies?0 -
I already have one lost cause underway, and I'm not sure I need another one. My intention is to assist the vulnerable person I am helping in whatever way makes most sense to them, and at this stage that looks like moving banks.So, are you suggesting that they're not making enough adjustments to comply with the Equality Act? If so, then that would presumably be unlawful and you should report them to the relevant authorities....
Okay. So customers could self-select a local building society with local, community-based aspiration, if they wished to and if it provided the service(s) that they needed.Not per se, but by virtue of product range. If someone is looking for a safe place to deposit their savings via a branch, and maybe get a mortgage, then local building societies will be able to satisfy those requirements and as smallish businesses probably don't aspire to grow in scale beyond serving their local market in that way. However, if someone wants access to overdrafts, credit cards, direct debits, faster payments, online services, apps, etc, etc, then that does entail compliance with a greater range of regulation.0 -
I imagine your reference to criticism relates to my posts rather than the one you were replying to, as I've been struggling to get to grips with what you understand by 'social purpose' and in particular how that differs from the status quo. It's increasingly clear to me that the phrase was one of those vague soundbites that will mean different things to different people, and I suspect that this is why it was used in that 2010 letter, as that was stuffed full of similarly vapid terms that sounded good but in reality committed little.peterbaker wrote: »I keep getting criticised about what I might mean by social purpose of financial services companies (in particular banks) when all I did (I feel) was to understand the simple meaning of what the 17 Chairmen/CEOs tried to signpost when they first used the phrase in their joint letter in 2010 which fell on so many deaf ears. Most of the 17 may now be retired from the fray without getting anything done! I pointed to that letter because it seemed to be a deliberate acknowledgement that the industry had got lost in its social purpose,and that they'd do something to find it again.
My Flintstones story about the first bank in Bedrock was to try to offer what the first social purpose of the first bank in time would likely have been (a new service offering "money safety" - to stop Fred, Barney Wilma and Co.s worries about money being nicked from under straw mattresses and to stop Dino the dogasaurus from chewing it to pieces
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I then started to develop it a little further, light-heartedly to show how the social purpose might have developed into slightly more modern times, emphasising the "money safety" social purpose, but not developing that right up to date. Instead I then left it to readers to add to the history of that development of social purpose over eons or just decades if you like, and to try to describe what the social purpose might be today.
All I was doing I hope, was effectively highlighting the same challenge as Marcus Agius and Co set themselves in 2010.
But that letter is being dismissed like it was just the banks in a bit of a corner paying lip service - like so many banks website security help pages do today
Perhaps this was cynically deliberate by the 17, i.e. make all sorts of positive noises but fall some way short of making concrete promises against which they can be measured, but even if that's not the case, I'm unconvinced it's sensible to cling to every ambiguous word of it as if it was a definitive commitment by the entire industry to a particular course of action, rather than the (genuine) aspirations of some key individuals to improve the prevailing culture.0 -
That's the point, I don't see "social purpose" as ambiguous even if other words in the long letter may have been.I'm unconvinced it's sensible to cling to every ambiguous word of it as if it was a definitive commitment by the entire industry to a particular course of action, rather than the (genuine) aspirations of some key individuals to improve the prevailing culture.
And seriously, can you not accept that banks did have an easily definable social purpose to begin with and maybe even up to recent times, and that they do need constantly to be very clear to themselves about what their social purpose is, if only merely to justify their presence and actions within the personal and small business retail banking arena at least?
I mean it is said that even the police do only police us by consent (of we the people, based on what we perceive their social purpose to be?). Admittedly I sometimes wonder thesedays what police think their priorities should be (with e.g. ASB getting routinely neglected and the risks of it dumped back onto community and e.g. digital bank fraud almost never getting them to raise a finger!).
Are banks now excused even the implied consent angle i.e. consent by their customers on what banks social purpose is or should be judged only on the strength of "well we are where we are?" Or is the whole concept of social purpose now lost and not worth society, let alone banks, wasting their valuable time thinking about anymore?0 -
If you're saying that 'social purpose' isn't ambiguous and is easily definable, why do you have such difficulty in defining what you think it means?peterbaker wrote: »That's the point, I don't see "social purpose" as ambiguous even if other words in the long letter may have been.
And seriously, can you not accept that banks did have an easily definable social purpose to begin with and maybe even up to recent times, and that they do need constantly to be very clear to themselves about what their social purpose is, if only merely to justify their presence and actions within the personal and small business retail banking arena at least?
As far as I'm concerned, banks are there to provide financial services to those who wish to use them and can afford to do so, as simple as that. What additional justification of their existence do you feel is necessary?
Are we to presume that your apparent belief that it's a clear and unambiguous term means that you're convinced you interpret it the same way as the 2010 leaders did at the time, and you feel that this gives you the right (and means) to measure some perceived shortfalls?
You're seemingly trying to make some sort of philosophical point but as a customer of a bank, if I'm interested or concerned about its "social purpose" credentials (and knew what that meant) then I'm free to go elsewhere if it doesn't meet my (hypothetical) criteria....peterbaker wrote: »Are banks now excused even the implied consent angle i.e. consent by their customers on what banks social purpose is or should be judged only on the strength of "well we are where we are?" Or is the whole concept of social purpose now lost and not worth society, let alone banks, wasting their valuable time thinking about anymore?0 -
Even just in this thread, there has been mention of 'vulnerable' customers, with vulnerability in this context being expressed in terms of age, memory loss, dementia, etc, but in numerous other threads there are demands for accommodation of a very wide range of physical and mental conditions, each with their own unique characteristics, so I genuinely don't see banks (or indeed any other organisations) as being able to please all the people all the time.
Not to mention the points raised about people with undiagnosed dementia, for example, who don't actually see themselves as vulnerable in the first place. How do the banks distinguish the unkowingly vulnerable from the non-vulnerable? Perhaps I am one of the unknowingly vulnerable, who knows? How far must the banks go to protect me from myself? Right now I'd just like to be able to carry out my required transactions (many of which may look unusual as I - like many on here - transfer money here there and everywhere), without the bank constantly asking me if I'm sure I know what I'm doing.0 -
Leaving aside the answer that no one would expect the Banks to do anything that was actually physically impossible, I think your question also side-steps the real experiences of vulnerable people and their carers.MisterMotivated wrote: »Not to mention the points raised about people with undiagnosed dementia, for example, who don't actually see themselves as vulnerable in the first place. How do the banks distinguish the unkowingly vulnerable from the non-vulnerable? ...
There will be a wide range of such experiences, though I suspect the most common will be where someone's family and any carer will see signs that a person is becoming less able to cope with the day-to-day management of their bank account(s). The vulnerable person then might become aware of it when prompted, or they may not. They may sense a difficulty with banking but not feel the wider issues of dementia. Or they may deny a problem at all.
In the first instance, the bank will only be able to act with the vulnerable person's consent. Or they may detect fraud in progress, or after the event. Or they may be caused additional work because of repeatedly lost Cards, forgotten PINs and passwords. There are a huge range of scenarios, and each case will be potentially different from the next. As things progress, the relationship with the Bank may begin to break down, as facilities are suspended due to misuse, and even because the Bank deems that the person is no longer capable of giving informed consent to their transactions.
It is a complex problem, and I am not pretending for one second that there are simple answers to it. However, as banking becomes ever more technical, and the number of victims of dementia increases it can only become a more and more serious issue.
In my posts, I have been talking about things that would be opt-in checks and controls that a person, their carer and the bank might implement with the vulnerable person's consent. The aim in their implementation would also be to simply access overall, not make it more complex.Right now I'd just like to be able to carry out my required transactions (many of which may look unusual as I - like many on here - transfer money here there and everywhere), without the bank constantly asking me if I'm sure I know what I'm doing.0 -
I tried to make an online payment of £179 to a reputable company today with a credit card. It didn't work, so I tried again. Once again it didn't work. So I tried with a debit card, I was advised to contact my bank; but then oddly enough I had an immediate e-mail confirming my purchase. I then made another purchase from the same company, this time for £15. Used the debit card and it wouldn't go through.
In the meantime I had had text messages from both the credit card company and my bank. The bank wanted to know if the £15 transaction was by me and I confirmed it. They told me that the payment had been stopped and that I should do it again. Satisfactory result this time. But I couldn't understand why my bank were checking a £15 payment to a reputable company, when I have c.£35K of transactions going through my account every month. And no mention of the £179, which I found odd.
Still intrigued, I phoned the credit card company in response to their text message. It was their fraud department and they considered my £179 transaction as 'unusual activity'. When pressed, they said I hadn't paid this company before!! I could have but didn't point out to them that in the last month I've used their card to make payments to a miscellany of companies I've never paid before and some of them for well over £179.
I suppose it's comforting to have this involvement but it did seem, in the circumstances, a bit of a palaver!0 -
peterbaker wrote: »My Flintstones story about the first bank in Bedrock was to try to offer what the first social purpose of the first bank in time would likely have been (a new service offering "money safety" - to stop Fred, Barney Wilma and Co.s worries about money being nicked from under straw mattresses and to stop Dino the dogasaurus from chewing it to pieces)
The problem with what you say is that this isn't how banking originated. The earliest banks date to the 12th and 13th centuries, and the Italian Renaissance, especially in Genoa, Florence and Venice. These banks were merchant banks whose purpose priarily was the provision of loans and investments to the mercantile classes. The new banking practices began to spread throughout Europe over the subsequent five centuries. The social purpose of these banks was to facilitate commerce, not to act as a safety deposit box.
You also made comment about banking in the American West, which claimed that the prupose was to protect people's money from thieves: it wasn't. Those banks operated along the same lines as the European banks. They were intended to facilitate commerce. While the wealthier people living in frontier communities may have used banks as depositors, the core purpose of the bank was not to safeguard physical cash.peterbaker wrote: »I then started to develop it a little further, light-heartedly to show how the social purpose might have developed into slightly more modern times, emphasising the "money safety" social purpose, but not developing that right up to date. Instead I then left it to readers to add to the history of that development of social purpose over eons or just decades if you like, and to try to describe what the social purpose might be today.
You introduced this amorphous idea of "social purpose", so it is for you to define what that purpose is.
From what you have written, you have attributed an idea of social purpose that is not present in the history. You may wish to change the social purpose, but your assertion that it once was as you wish is wrong. If you do wish to change the social purpose then you are calling for the radical overhaul of global finance, and a realignment that would drastically change the nature of capitalism. You are perfectly entitled to wish for this, but you need to appreciate that this is waht you ae calling for - and the potential consequences of that.
Interestingly, building societies and credit unions, do offer an alternative approach, albeit still not the one you wish for.0
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