It’s probably one of those things where it’s a great feature, but not one they want to implement as it would “encourage” contact by phone (which costs them more) instead of via chat (their preferred channel).
I think a similar situation with cheques, and their attitude to them, is the real reason why Monzo (for example) won’t implement cheque imaging.
You’ve got to love reading stories like this:
So as is quite often usual, look at the picture. An person of much older years stood there at a cash machine. Pictures like that are in my worthless opinion, shown deliberately to give the impression that all elderly people are somehow incapable of coping with change or tech.
Bank branches don’t make money for the banks. They cost them money and tech is taking over. Going anywhere near a bank branch for me these days, is actually completely alien because it’s been over a decade since I had to actually carry out any business that required me to do so. Everything I do now, is via the internet or App. It’s called progress.
Last time I went i to a branch was to deposit 6k in cash via one of their deposit machines in branch.
If I tried that now, they’d probably block my account 
That article is a bit unfair on Barclays. Only at the end does it mention that other banks are doing the same.
My nearest HSBC branch, in a busy student area, went machine only the best part of 20 years ago, before it closed completely.
Even building societies are doing the same. A local branch of Nationwide doesn’t have a counter service.
Like you, this doesn’t affect me because I rarely need to use a branch.
Agreed.
Let’s face it - the “digitalisation” of branches is deliberate in order to nudge customers into being more comfortable with self-service, ultimately so they won’t need the branch at all.
That’s hardly a secret and is even pointed out by the spokesman in the article.
Those who insist on a branch are already in a minority so these kinds of measures are designed to wean them off branch banking, even as they are reluctant to do so, so that branches which regularly serve only a small number of people can close.
I don’t really see what’s wrong with that, otherwise the vast majority of customers end up subsiding those who need/demand a “personal service”.
I like having some kind of branch access so that when tech does go wrong or you have a more complex situation (e.g housesale requiring large FP or CHAPS transfer) you do the transaction then and there with ID.
The app banks could just lock you out of their app and cancel your card if they have issues and you have zero comeback bar using the slow FOS or slower Courts.
Good luck, because I doubt they’ll be any branches left within 10 years, either that, or you’d have to travel a ridiculous amount of mileage just to get to one. I’ve just recently moved house, every single aspect including money transfers, all completed electronically. I guess having a decent conveyancer helped too.
The thing is, “when the tech goes wrong” is often a situation where the branch can’t be much help anyway.
Either there is a temporary outage affecting everyone, which is usually resolved within a few hours anyway, or an account-related issue which requires speaking to the relevant internet banking team on the phone to resolve.
Anything more than that is usually a catastrophic mainframe-related platform issue like the TSB migration, where the branch runs on the same system so has the same chaos to contend with and can’t do much about the problem. All branches really are is a physical “face” into the bank’s systems and processes. If you apply for a product, the advisor is essentially typing in your details and doing an online-style application in front of you. I’d rather do that myself. If you are paying in cash or cheques, they are just processing a transaction in the same way digital transactions are processed, only it’s physical.
“The bank” is really just made up of different channels of interaction which all link back into the mainframe (and only the ledger on that mainframe is the true record of your account). That mainframe is ultimately what dictates the status of your account. Just because you are making a large payment in person, doesn’t mean that your account won’t get frozen.
It’s just convention that people go to a branch for “big moments” like buying a house, because that’s what they’ve always done and they like (to an extent) the hand-holding of branch employees to make sure they are doing it right. Most (perhaps all) banks allow a CHAPS transfer to be arranged over the phone and many allow it online.
I can’t personally think of a reason why I’d want to go to a branch, I’d probably only go if the bank insisted (which is more of a failure of process than anything else - the only reason some things require going in person is because they’ve not developed good technological solutions for those scenarios).
Great post by the way 
I could be completely wrong here, but I suspect the vast majority of folks buying properties these days don’t go anywhere near a bank branch because quite simply, there’s no need. For my recent house purchase, well, I used a mortgage broker to sort the mortgage out and for the £300 fee, they did a great job. As for the actual house purchase, well our conveyancer handled absolutely everything and despite the cost of the fee for doing so, it was completely worth it.
Even the house we sold to buy this new one, 20 years ago, we sorted the mortgage via a broker and the purchase was handled by the solicitors for the builders. When we re-mortgaged that property, that did involve a branch visit, The Derbyshire Building Society as it was back then and I have to admit, the in branch staff were fantastic, couldn’t fault them. That mortgage was eventually subsumed by Nationwide anyway.
Clearly there are still plenty of folks who do prefer branch banking, but it’s not something that rocks my boat and I honestly can’t see me utilising any bank branch again because quite simply, there’s no need to.
And don’t forget the bank likes to see you for “big moments” because you are easier to upsell to in that instance.
I must admit I think I’m in the same ring as Topsy. Bank branches are wholly irrelevant.
No person in the UK could not handle their money via card, they just would prefer cash. Which? keeps going on about this rubbish because the only people paying them are from that generation. Show me anyone under 50 that subscribes to Which?
There are genuinely so many benefits to going cashless. Not having to carry a wallet (we will be digitising IDs in the near future too, DL wise anyways. passports don’t fit into trad wallets so ignore those). Avoiding cash in hand businesses paying people less than minimum wage (no cash to pay people). Stopping tax avoidance (under declarations from SME).
Banks should be committing now to something like a collective pot of 500m between them to be provided as a % of market share each and then hiring people to educate the few that don’t want to learn to make the switch. Anyone else gets left behind.
Although I’ll say one thing - if they get rid of branches entirely that money better go towards 24/7/365 phone lines. Barclays rocked my shit with that, having a glitch during the timezone switch (which had my transfer fail, saying wrong info (and can’t setup payee for 24hrs), even though it was correct) being closed when I needed to pay my Japanese tutor.
Like really, look at all the apps. Starling, Revolut, Lloyd’s, Barclays. We’re past the point of barely workable online banking.
Once upon a time in a bank named Lloyds in a branch far far away, on the ultra rare occasion I went into the branch, the cashiers would do their stuff which usually entailed them having to look at my balance. That was when the upsell started and it got on my tits if I’m honest. A staff member noting my bank balance and then trying to flog me crap products was literally just too much.
And for the younger account holders, just starting out on that journey which might lead them to be stood in front of a cashier attempting to flog them irrelevant products without due regard to the lack of free time they might of their hands, what response might you suggest they use to even the balance?
(NB: none of the above should be seen as in any leading…….
).
The PPI mis-selling scandal alone cost British backs over five times the cost of the London 2012 Olympics. Lloyds, a principal sponsor of those Games, led the way on PPI, costing it nearly £30bn. The entire PPI affair lost banks a lot of money, so hopefully it taught them all a big lesson.
We’ll just need to agree to disagree, I think here.
I have worked in a number of banks and when systems go down, you don’t want to be stuck with Pigeon neobank app or phoneline thats gone t**ts up. You want someone with direct access to their back office systems along with internal phonelines.
In a recent house purchase, Faster Payment limit was insufficent over the phone or via the app so I went into branch. Went in with debit card, photo ID and solictors letter - all done and dusted within 15 mins.
I live in a near a largish city, so not overally concerned on that front.
Not sure what a conveyancer is; my Solicitor and her firm were very good but that didn’t include her obtaining funds other than the mortgage.
A conveyancer is a specialist property lawyer/solicitor or whichever term one likes to use. So if you’ve taken the prudent step of employing one and some people believe it or not don’t just to save money, they should, I say should, carry out everything associated with buying or selling a property. Like with all services in life though, you get what you pay for. We had the same allocated conveyancer handle both the sale of our old property and then the purchase of our new build property. The fees weren’t cheap, but then the conveyancer we employed was a specialist in new build purchases and they put the developers solicitors right through the mill because the solicitors acting on behalf of the developers in effect it seems, weren’t very good at all and attempted on all levels to get us to sign off the purchase before building control had declared the property effectively safe for habitation because they apparently failed to understand the remit of the NHBC warranty amongst several other issues. This isn’t uncommon apparently, new build developers whose own solicitors don’t entirely know the ropes because they employ understudies to carry out work on behalf of the actual solicitor.
As for the handling of funds, we never saw the actual funds from the sale of our old house, the conveyancer held the funds on file for almost 3 months in a protected account and those funds were then handed directly to our mortgage provider on final completion of the new build purchase. So, a good conveyancer should handle every aspect of the sale/purchase but very much depending on whether one is prepared to pay for all of the services available. Our total fees for the sale/purchase of our former and then our new build property, came to around £5.5k, but with all of the hassle that the conveyancer had to deal with, plus we didn’t have to worry about money transfers etc, it was money well spent.
We’ve since spoken to neighbours who purchased the other new build properties around us and it seems some of them are now discovering that only the most basic of searches were carried out and things have come to light they weren’t aware of. Others had to wait months for final building control certificates where our conveyancer sought written confirmation prior to the purchase that one would be provided within a specific timeframe. Some of my neighbours still haven’t had their properties valued for Council Tax months after moving in and some have had to appeal (and won) their valuation. Our CT valuation was done within six weeks of occupation. Incorrect MPAN numbers on gas and electricity Smart meters causing billing issues, something we had happen to us and which took 3 months for our energy provider to rectify and which some of my neighbours are still having issues with.
Basically, choose wisely when employing a conveyancer!
This post probably deserves it’s own thread lol!
Like TSB, when its systems went down, the branch staff couldn’t access those systems either?
I can’t see the corrolation in your viewpoint I’m afraid. If the systems are “down” how does it make a difference if you’re standing in front of someone in a branch who can’t do anything, or not?
If systems aren’t down, how does it make any difference verifying someone’s identity if they’re present or not? Starling is able to verify identity to open a bank account remotely in about 30 seconds.
It might have made the difference in your old fashioned banks, but something like Starling has been built to not have branches, so surely it’ll be able to complete transactions without anyone needing to go in one?
I don’t think so - I have an excellent (fully qualified) Solicitor.
A standalone ‘Conveyancer’ wouldn’t be legally competent.
I think you’ll find if you were unfortunate enough to bank with TSB at that time, they were able provide modest amounts of cash in branch if requested.
Try doing that via the app, web or call centre 
