Modern banking
We opened bank accounts for Léon, Anna and Amaia back in October. Soon after, we received letters containing the account numbers but telling us that passbooks couldn’t be issued until we transferred money into the accounts.
We put a tenner into each account, but the passbooks never turned up, and although we set up weekly standing orders for transferring pocket money, they never received any account statements.
Phyllis then went into our local branch of RBS today to complain, and they created the passbooks while she waited.
However, instead of doing this electronically, the teller had to write every single transaction out manually (see the photo on the left).
Is this really the best modern British banks can do in 2011?
If so, it might help explain why RBS and other banks had to bailed out by the taxpayer back in 2008.
It does seem like it. When Danske Bank took over Northern Irish Bank and Northern Bank in 2004 they were surprised that everything was done manually (well, not surprised as they did due diligence before buying), and revolutionized the bank sector in Northern Ireland by introducing so-called computers and Internet banking, improving effiency by a large number. That (and the fact that the banks are actually solvent) have caused a huge increase in customer base for the two banks in the last years.
I’ve been using Internet banking since 2004 in the UK (I use smile), and I know for a fact that RBS are sending Marcel and Charlotte account statements that have been output by a computer, so I don’t think RBS don’t have the ability, they just have preserved some old-fashioned account types.
I definitely don’t think British banks were as old-fashioned as their Irish counterparts back in 2004.