Today on the radio I heard a bank employee wax lyrical about old-school banking and how he had thoroughly enjoyed it.
Many listeners rang in to voice their memories too. It sent me on a nostalgia trip, but also a trip of annoyance and contradictions.
I remembered the first bank book that I had, a hard-cover affair, filled with pages and columns and entries written in by hand and stamped on the edge of the page. So simple.
There was the filling in of the deposit slip with your name and account details and sometimes, heaven forbid, a withdrawal slip, though that was discouraged. Saving was the point of the exercise.
Plastic colourful piggy banks followed next, and even the offer of quite good interest rates on child savings account. The bank came to us in primary school with money boxes made of cheap tin, made to look like the outside of a very conservative bank from the olden days. Which bank you ask?
Banking for life
Our schools became places where we took our meagre offerings and they duly deposited them in the local bank. Ah, those were the days. Such service, though it was a way to indoctrinate us to a particular bank for life.
Then came credit cards, which I embraced with gusto, getting one as a uni student despite having little income. The trick was to pay the balance off every month without incurring interest charges, and I can proudly boast to have only paid a charge once. I am, therefore, not the type of customer banks really want on their books. Too stingy for words.
As the years rolled by, and as all of our pay went straight into the new digital world of banking, I happily segued to online banking. It was convenient, my computer interface was easy to use and it became effortless to pay bills over the net and transfer money as I needed.
Honeymoon is over
But now my love affair with banks has taken a turn for the worse. Now my online bank is planning to go completely to an app. On my phone. No more tapping away on the big computer screen. Horror!
The news was sent to me in a text full of glowing words, such as “we listened to what our customers wanted!” and “we’re excited to take you on this journey and bring improvements to your banking experience with us!” It was vomit material in its sugar-coated language, not tricking this old customer for a nanosecond. It is all driven by money, which is, of course, ironic as I write this piece.
I don’t want to go on a new journey. Why am I so distressed? I liked my bank being online and convenient. I knew my way around their web page and the font and characters were big enough for me to handle. I obviously was not one of the surveyed customers screaming out for change.
My fat fingers fumble with numbers on a phone, my eyesight struggles with small figures and I don’t want to change! And what if I lose my phone or it is stolen? I have changed from being an early adopter to an old dinosaur, a grumpy one at that.
“Not happy Jan!” as the Yellow Pages advertisement slogan said years ago.
Now don’t get me started on post offices.
What do you miss about real banking? Why not share your experience in the comments section below?
Also read: I’m not old! You are
