Banks' drive to automation comes at the expense of service
'Do you have the banking app?' The chances are you will have been asked this question if you have visited your local bank branch lately, assuming of course, you can find one.
For years the big banks have been relentless in their drive to get their remaining customers to switch to online banking. So news that Santander is making 2,000 staff redundant as part of a drive towards 'simplification and automation' comes as little surprise.
Chief executive Mike Regnier says there may be further job cuts on the way before the year is out, adding that it was 'too early to say' what the impact of its impending purchase of rival TSB on staff and branch numbers.
If past experience is anything to go by, it will probably be fairly easy to know what 'simplification and automation' means in practice. While Mr Regnier has said there are no plans at the moment for any further branch closures, the staffing cuts will inevitably mean fewer people to handle telephone inquiries, more time spent on hold or trying to get some sense out of impersonal and sometimes ineffectual robots which are unable to grasp customers' precise problems.
Financial institutions, of course, are in the business of making a profit, and if computers and robots are cheaper than paid staff, it is inevitable that is what they will do. But we do hope that customers who are dissatisfied with the 'simplification and automation' of banking services will remember that the consumer is king, and vote with their feet.
And maybe at least one of the banks could take a different approach, and start listening to what their customers actually want rather than delegating the task to machinery.
Maybe they could call it The Listening Bank.
