Over the last twenty years, UK bank balance sheets exploded, but bank branch networks contracted. The reason was increased automation of banking services. It wasn't just ATMS and cash-handling, loans approvals were increasingly delegated to computers.To what extent did this over-reliance on technology contribute to the banking crisis?
4 comments:
Q. To what extent did this over-reliance on technology contribute to the banking crisis?
A. ZERO.
P.S. Over-Reliance??? Computers are far more reliable than people.
The high street has changed and replaced with the shopping mall, and mega one-stop shops (tesco, safeways, sainsburys etc).
ATMs, Debit Cards, Direct Debit for paying bills, Credit Cards have reduced the need to go to the bank for such things.
On-line banking / call centres have removed the need to goto the bank most of the time.
With the move to large shops & chains most takings are now picked up by security vans, rather than deposited at the local bank.
With the increased use of electronic money (debit/credit cards) their is less physical cash to be deposited.
So to answer your question "Where did the high street banks go?" They weren't needed, so they closed down.
For those that have not changed with the times, the elderly, it does cause problems. The Post Office should be taking up the slack on this one (a lost opportunity imho).
High street bank branch's, or rather the lack of them, had nothing to-do with banking crisis.
And finally, Technology had nothing directly to do with the banking crisis as humans made the decisions not the technology and its humans that had a blinkered view of the risks. People misusing technology, or not understanding the limits of technology, will have had some negative effects, but that is not the fault of technology per-say.
How much have blogs, the web, up todate information etc lessened the banking crisis? (its also technology :-) How much worse is the crisis due to big-media scaremongering?
To what extent did this over-reliance on technology contribute to the banking crisis?
None. Computers might help you make mistakes faster, as the old joke goes, but mistakes are hardly their fault.
Mergers and Acquisitions surely. Theres no need to have A Halifax branch next door to a Bank of Scotland. TSB & Lloyds. RBS and NatWest.
You don't have many grocery shops any more either. Or Butchers, Fishmongers or Greengrocers.
Efficiency, and M & A.
Insatiable demand for Sandwiches by day and Curry by night seems harder to explain however.
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