DID you hear the one about the Irish bank with no cash? There’s no punchline to this particular joke.
You may have read that one of our pillar banks – Bank of Ireland – recently announced plans to have up to 100 ‘cash free’ branches by the end of this year. Similar measures, although on a less ambitious scale so far, are also underway at AIB and Ulster Bank.
To be clear, you’ll still be able to lodge or withdraw your money from a machine – just not over the counter and only up to a certain limit. Don’t even think about bringing in that jar of change you’ve been saving for a rainy day as coins won’t be accepted.
So, what’s next? Foodless restaurants? Bars without booze? Barbers for the bald?
My local bank closed during the recession and has lain vacant ever since. It was a huge loss to the community and sucked the economic life out of the heart of our village.
These days, I have to travel a fair distance for my banking needs. The branch I now use has become a soulless place; its sterile interior and robotic functionality is like something from a dystopian sci-fi movie. If you look hard enough, there are traces of humanity in the form of a handful of real people who will help you use all the fancy machines that will give and accept actual money.
If you don’t want to hand over your cash or cheque to a shiny, new-fangled piece of technology, there is at least one proper human behind the two remaining teller counters. The queues are so long that you promise yourself you’re going to use the machines next time. Or better still – take out all your money once a month and put it under your mattress or in a piggybank.
Recently, I went to my bank to order some English currency and was forced to endure an agonisingly long wait. How long is long? Let’s put it this way: I could have been halfway to London in the same amount of time.
I was going to complain but there were too many people waiting at the tiny customer service desk. Less is more, it seems, in my bank.
Maybe this is just the reality of modern day banking and I need to move with the times. But some branches have become such hostile environments that I can only suspect their modus operandi is to deter plebs like me from darkening their door in the first place.
Everything you thought you knew about banking has changed. I grew up believing that opening a bank account was a responsible thing to do. But rather than being a place to save money, many banks give you little or no interest and then hoover up your funds with ridiculous charges every quarter.
The cashless bank trend has understandably been greeted with alarm by some organisations that advocate for the elderly. While many senior citizens are well capable of doing their banking online, others may not be up to speed with technology and will rely on person-to-person assistance when dealing with money. And as older people are particularly vulnerable to crime in their homes, the last thing we need are further measures to discourage them from putting their cash in a bank.
The process to keep ordinary customers away from their banks has been ongoing for a number of years. Banks cite changing habits and produce figures showing a decline in over the counter cash transactions and mass migration to online banking. This may well be the case but it has come about as a result of banks being a lot more impersonal and less customer driven. Given the reckless lending that preceded the financial crash by some of these self same institutions, they’ve got a bit of a bloody cheek, if you ask me.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but aren’t banks supposed to be in the money business? Whatever happened to the notion that cash is king?