Banking on the future
The more I hear these days about supposed hi-technology, I wonder if we have advanced too quick - in most cases its a cash-driven situation, as we live in the age of everything is geared to profit and more profit regardless of the matter in hand.
While we are currently in the ongoing decimation stages of local ‘high street banks’ and not-so-local branches planned by those we can only assume don’t actually use them but try to polish the process by offering such waffle as: ‘We truly share your concerns’ (Actual meaning: but we make the decisions, so there) or ‘It is with great reluctance we see no alternative but to close your local branch in our ongoing modernisation and restructuring programme’ (Actual meaning: ‘Oh goody! More loot for our shareholders, our bonus pots for just turning up, pensions etc, so its ‘win, win time’ again for us).
I cannot bring to mind another perceived essential part of daily life that shows so much contempt for its customers and would not be able to ‘fill its boots’ at the same time as insulting the very people who have made it possible.
Basically, it's all going towards online banking, but I burst out laughing not so long ago when I went to the bank and was asked/leaned on (it didn’t work..) would I like to set up an online banking account - wouldn’t take a minute or two (oh yeah?) as we only want your life history or the bits we don’t already know about you - it will make life so simpler (who for?). I pointed out that it sounds all very nice and jolly...although if everything does/will go online, what function would she serve in this process once the doors shut? 'Turkeys voting for Christmas' sprung to mind.
Response there cometh none, other than she said she was ‘only informing me of what the bank’s policy commitment was’ as I replied you don’t hear of many trendy wine bars being converted into banks nowadays..
I assume the same strategy was used years ago by the Japanese when they asked for volunteers to become kamikaze pilots for a short but brief, happy flying career but with no pension prospects to speak of - plus no worries about getting the aircraft’s paintwork scratched or damaged, like you would hiring a car and risk losing your deposit nowadays or worrying about sissy things like ‘textbook’ landings either.
In trying to embrace the ‘digital age’, where broadband and similar requirements can vary - OK, almost non existent in some cases and more so locally, based on my own and other’s experiences - all this is swept aside by a suit miles away in his/her plush office staring at cluttered screens and other things that he/she has been told is ‘the future’. It can be perplexing to us mere mortals who collectively pay to keep him/her in their acquired lifestyle and are but faint specks on the map of things when it comes down to frontline services.
Not so long ago, I rang my bank - somewhere thousands of miles away as it's cheaper to operate there - and at the end of the conversation, I was asked if, for the sake of ‘added security’ (?!), would I like to record my voice with them so that it will be my ‘password’ instead of having to dial assorted account and pin numbers etc. My response was: ‘OK, but if I have a cold, for instance, and my voice does, and can, change as in: ‘I hab a leaky wunny bose todah’ would this not ‘throw’ my recorded voice I have set it up with in the memory bank at your end?’
Serene Brightness of the Future at the other end gave a long pause - I thought he had died - as he eventually said: ‘You have a very most good point there, Mr Wade’
Mr Wade?! - that was quick - I am a changed person already - security, did he say?!
I said I think I would pass on that clever idea and thanked my lucky stars I am not as bright as these folk running the show but just a thick, simple peasant - it's the sort of thing a committee comes up with as they want to get home early as it's so crass and not really thought out.
Weeks later, the bank called to confirm a query was sorted - I am good to them, I really am - plus I asked about the ‘your voice is your password’ rubbish and my different ‘adviser’ this time said that this had been quietly dropped as being unworkable (never - really?) plus it cost mega bucks of course but I could have told them for free, as indeed I did when asked, or as my granddad once said: ‘The supposed bright lights don’t always shine - some are still in their box untouched, so quite dim’.
Friend Peter was explaining his tale of woe with his bank that he went through recently that perhaps makes the ‘Carry On’ films seem quite normal.
He went to his bank’s ATM armed with the debit card he has used successfully for the past few years - until now. The card was ‘declined’ and so after a few attempts at cleaning and polishing it in case some unseen dirt or debris was causing it to malfunction, still nothing happened. Resort to Plan B.
He rang his bank on the ‘here-to-help-you-24-hour-service' but failed their security check, as they told him his mother - he only had the one so in theory no possible confusion - wasn’t who she was (!!!), which made him wonder had he wasted money on birthday and Christmas cards, prezzies etc. on some imposter if what the bank was now saying was true? They are always right, of course, although I could shed light on that one to prove otherwise based on my own past experiences - plus having all the family photographs altered as well.
It was arranged he should go to his local bank branch (no closure yet, but expected) the following day at 9am to see someone to sort the matter out. He was there dead on 9am with his passport, driving licence, past bank statements and was seen eventually at 12.30pm.
They trawled through his paperwork plus accounts and after nearly two hours could not understand why his card had been declined, although he did point out it was ’your lot that have caused all this inconvenience - and that’s putting it mildly!’.
Hacking has now become an Olympic-style ‘sport’ as if the likes of the NHS, major stores etc have been highlighted among many others recently for data breaches. If they can’t safeguard our details, what chance have we got with banks that are prime number one targets in real terms by their very nature?
A ‘Dad’s Army’ thought: ‘Forget the Home Guard, Capt. Mainwaring - you country really needs you NOW - back at the bank!’