Anglo American View of Banks & Banking in 2023

[MoreJoe]

I was born and raised in England and retaining a lot of my foundation I have grown up around the world and grown old in the USA. So please forgive any mixed use of language and terms.
Here in the USA the banks have gone from massive expansion to massive contraction and consolidation in about on decade.
In their consolidation they continue to push their basic work flow out and onto their customers. Slowly but surely they are moving away from the use of Checks or Cheques in favor of making all payments by electronic transfer. Preferably automatic transfer with all activities handled by their trusted (Hah?) computers.
They are trying to make me into a Bank Clerk, or Bank Teller, or whatever title they go by these days (Probably Third Assistant Vice President of Customer Interface?) Most of them could not give you correct change out of a tenner.

For my part I prefer not to add multiple entrances and exits to my finances each with a sign hang hanging over it saying "Help Yourself to Whatever You Want Whenever You Want".
If you dabble in this direction I recommend Dual Authentication on all transactions. Nothing comes in or out without me being notified on my phone and only then when I post a coded response approving every transaction.
It is a pain in the a$$ but the world is full of very smart thieves and if I cannot stop them at least I will try to make their lives difficult.
Flame off.
End of Rant.

-MoreJoe

[Mark2009]

Joe, Iwill not do electronic banking of any kind. My bank says I would be reimbursed if I was scammed but it is still very inconvenient and it gives potential access to all sorts of issues.
My bank still has counter staff so I can speak to a real person.
I do buy on line but I only use one credit card so if there is a problem I can go straight to it.
When I pay for groceries more than once staff on the till have said " oh, real m0ney ?"

[Margaret Pilkington]

Banks want the element of control in our lives.
They want us to ditch cash because cash is anonymous...so your spending cannot be targeted by those who would influence you or try to influence you.
I have had to accept internet banking as my local bank has closed. It transferred all its customers to Blackburn...then the Blackburn branch closed too.

Now If I want to do something that needs a face to face consultation I have to go to Preston.
I do not use my debit card for shopping I use cash.
yes I have to use my card to get cash from the ATM but I check my account after every one of these withdrawals.

[Exile on Spencer St]

We don’t do internet banking and, recently, have moved away from using a credit card for purchases to using cash day-to-day.
Buying online, which is generally reserved for bigger items we can’t touch and buy locally, is still has to be with a card.
Fortunately, whilst banks have disappeared in the town we now live in, there are still ATMs to extract some moolah.
What this does reveal is just how much you are spending. Flashing a phone or card is deliberately designed to obscure the reality of money and to encourage everyone into debt, which is the ultimate aim of banks (and their servants, mainstream political parties).
Debt is the new slavery.

[Margaret Pilkington]

Those on restricted incomes are the real losers.
If you know how much you have in your purse…and when that is gone you are skint, then that forces you to be careful.
When you use other digital payment methods it is very difficult to know how much you are spending.
I would never use a watch or a phone to pay for anything…I do not trust the security of these methods.

[Margaret Pilkington]

It galls me when I am doing my internet banking and I am paying a bill, to be asked why I am transferring this amount of money.
If the recipient is British Gas or BT then it is clear I am paying a bill.
I guess that these questions are all to weed out money laundering but I find them irritating and if I could tell my bank to mind their own beeswax, I would.

[taddy]

[QUOTE=Mark2009;1272965]Joe, Iwill not do electronic banking of any kind. My bank says I would be reimbursed if I was scammed but it is still very inconvenient and it gives potential access to all sorts of issues.
My bank still has counter staff so I can speak to a real person.
I do buy on line but I only use one credit card so if there is a problem I can go straight to it.
When I pay for groceries more than once staff on the till have said " oh, real m0ney ?"

I am with you Mark, When I called into my local for a pint (or two) last week the young lass handed me the card reader as a matter of course, my comment of "Aye Lass if ever I have pay for me ale wi plastic I will give ore supping"
resulted in smiles and giggles from the bar staff and "well said" from one of the locals.

[dotti34]

I use cash at the shops because I like to be in complete control of my money and what I am spending. I have a credit card I keep a good balance on and this is the only card I use to pay any accounts that have to be paid over the Internet. If I can pay any bills at the local post office I do. I do not use ATMs and I get my money from the bank or the post office.

By the way, I don’t use self-serve check-outs at the shops as this is my way of trying to keep someone in a job. If everyone uses self-serve then the check-out workers will become redundant.

As for the way banks are heading what about the woman who went to get some money from an ATM and realised she had forgotten her bank card. Not to worry she thought as she had ID on her and she went into the bank proper only to be told by the teller that money could only be got through an ATM as they didn’t hold any cash at the bank. What! a bank with no cash - that’s worse than a pub with no beer.

[Margaret Pilkington]

I do not use the self service check outs either.
I know people who do though and they have told me that sometimes they will put through a cheaper version of what they have bought…so they are scamming the supermarket.
I asked one person what they would do if they were caught.
They just said that they would say it was an error….but they said there is usually only one person supervising these check out and frequently they are busy helping those folk who are having trouble scanning something.
Using the post office in town to get money is problematic as there are usually big queues and only a couple of windows open to get served.
I am very wary of using ATM’s because I am aware that these are sometime watched by folk who would roll you and rob you for a tenner(well no, even a fiver).

The banks are not interested in providing a service…they just want to make money and they do not mind how they do this.

[MoreJoe]

Sadly another side effect of shopping with credit cards is that "Somebody" "Somewhere" knows exactly what you are buying and how frequently you buy it. "They" know what medications you are on, what you eat, what you drink, where you travel, everything about you right down to your shoe size. We were never warned about or trained for this kind of scrutiny and we are the first generation to deal with it as "They" fine tune the system aimed at our Grandchildren.
My advice?
Stay anonymous.
Pay in cash.
-MoreJoe

[Margaret Pilkington]

This may not worry some people but it could have sinister connotations.
If some government body gets wind that you are overweight, then Asda may refuse to serve you with the box of chocolates you are buying for your mother’s birthday.
Likewise they might not allow you to but a bottle of wine…making you swap it for a bag of carrots a cabbage and a bag of Spanish onions.
Now that may sound far fetched…but if they want to know what you are buying and you use a debit card then they have that information to do whatever they want with it.

We have already seen that the population can be easily controlled. covid taught us that.

[skuta]

I still use cash, this is minimal and most everything else is electronic without any option to use different transactional method's.
None of my Brokers have physical branches to visit. Vanguard don't even seem to have an app. For most thing's I'm pretty much forced to go digital.
Thank goodness I use the much less hacked & secure Linux operating system.
If I used Windows, adequately securing this will be a whole different story.

[Margaret Pilkington]

I know this a sort of a thread wander, but I am surprised that no one has mentioned the practice of banks to de bank customers.
Now you may not like the opinions of someone like Nigel Farage, but what Coutts(the Bankers to the nobility) did was reprehensible.
Coutts is owned by Nat West. The tax payers of this country(you and me) have a 39% share of that bank, having bailed it out during the banking crisis.

Debanking means that you are effectively cancelled. Unable to function in society.

The other issue that meant Dame Alison Rose had to resign from her position as CEO.
She told a BBC reporter, in conversation a load of lies about WHY Nigel Farage had been removed as a customer.
Then to add insult to injury, Coutts released their reasons in a defamatory statement about NF.

If I were NF, then I would sue the be-hinds off Coutts.
It seems that many other people have had similar things happen to them.
That is scary…if it can happen to high profile people then it can happen to you.

[Exile on Spencer St]

The global snobs at NatWest and Coutts, who despise we peasants and especially those 17.4 million knuckledraggers who voted to leave the Holy EU Empire, “exited” the wrong guy in Nigel Farage.
He’s taking on the banking bar stewards and their bought politicians and lords.
Maybe those metro elites who run our banks for their benefit don’t even know there are alternatives to the MSM, never mind that Farage has a very popular show on GBNews.

[cashman]

FARAGE is correct they should make the full board resign.but doubt very much is SUNAK has the balls thats if he ever had them.