Why we still need bank branches

My family has just been through a hard time. Mother, mum, is old and losing her faculties. My brother is her full-time carer and recently organised the sale of her house. Funds were finally transferred into her bank account, and that’s where the trouble started.

My brother isn’t young and, in the spirit of trying to get things organised, he wanted to move large funds between her account, which now had the house sale balance, and his. The thing is that the bank limits transfers online to a maximum of £25,000 per transaction. Anything higher demands a visit to a branch … if there is one.

Luckily for my brother there is one near his house, although it is closing down in November.

Anyhow, he decides to take my frail mother down to the branch to deposit a cheque for a high value payment. At this point, I’m already melting down. Branch? A cheque? WTH?

He goes to the branch and, because my brother is not quite the same as me, the branch staff start to question him about the cheque and my mother, who is there reluctantly with her Zimmer frame and zero hearing ability. They then question my mother whether this cheque payment is with her approval, and she gets all upset. After all, she rarely goes out and doesn’t want to be there.

The result? The branch decides there may be something fishy and locks her account. No online or card transactions allowed but, at least, they say cheques will be processed. And this proves to be correct as, the next day, they process his cheque deposit and it is live in his account 24 hours later.

So, I arrive and go to the branch with my mother and brother the day after. Mother is really hating the experience. She wants the toilet, but branches don’t have toilets for customers ( well, in traditional banks ), and she gets very upset whilst waiting for service.

We finally get some service and I deposit a large amount cheque with no issue. We talk to the branch staff and try to explain all. I tell them I have power of attorney and show them the letter confirming as such but, because my mum is not quite copus mentus, she had not activated the attorney document in time. I go online and ask for another activation code. The government runs this website and respond that the code will be sent by post within 14 days for security purposes. WTF?

Meanwhile, the branch is happy all will go through and talk to us nicely, although with little knowledge of what LPA (Letter of Power of Attorney) means and how it works. They deposit the large amount cheque with no questions asked. They don’t ask for advice or identification documents, even though we were all there with passports and driving licenses.

Whatever. So far, so good.

24 hours later, not so far and not so good. The cheque deposit is declined.  I call the bank.

They tell me the cheque is tagged as suspicious due to the large withdrawal the day before, and that they need to clear the cheque in direct discussion with my mother. Bearing in mind that my mother doesn’t leave the house anymore, unless she must, and that when she does it is not a great experience, we ask if she really needs to be involved. They insist, but say it can be done by telephone.

Well, my mother went deaf in her 70s and now cannot hear a thing. I explain this, but the bank is insistent that they must hear her approvals to clear the cheque. Bearing in mind that I am still waiting for the activation of the LPA – which is the only way out of this – I ask my brother, her carer, to get mum to the phone to get the cheque cleared.

By this point, we are all frustrated and upset.

The thing that struck me at this point, is that we are in the middle of the most complex processes and that these processes are last century. We are using cheques, letters in the post and bank branches, and little is digital.

I mean that I can understand alarms go off when large amounts are being withdrawn from an elderly person’s account, but when said elderly person is in a bank branch with ID and her two children, who also have IDs, what is the point of that branch? We talk about branches being important for the exceptional transactions rather than the norm these days, but these branch meetings and discussions show that the branch staff are just box ticking cheque depositors, and have no idea how to deal with the complex processes. No wonder it’s closing in November.

Thing is, this points to crisis and opportunity.

The branches of the last century were purely for transactional processing – deposits, cash, cheques, paper. The branches of the next century are to provide smooth processing of complex transactions in times of distress. Or that’s what they should be there for.