COLIN CAMPBELL: Resisting the pressure to ‘go online’ seems futile
For most of the past decade any visit to my High Street bank would almost inevitably include a silent tug of war to separate me from my trusty blue passbook.
Bank staff on their side of the counter subtly pulled in one direction and I with equal determination resisted and pulled back. But their intent was obvious. Passbooks updating withdrawals and pay-ins of money in print were an anachronism and they wanted them gone. The heaviest hints were dropped about the supreme ease and convenience of online banking. “Why don’t you give it a try?”
I’d give an “it’s not for me” shrug but the specific reason was I didn’t trust online banking in security terms and I had no confidence that one wrong click from a technological inadequate like me would result in what money I possessed being diverted to a scam account. I held on tenaciously to that regularly updated passbook with its printouts and its reassuring familiarity.
So when I received a letter from the bank which summarily decreed that passbooks were to be withdrawn and would be unusable from February 22 – with no ifs, buts or maybes left on the counter – I thought about my reaction, which not so long ago would have been to storm the branch all on my own and demand an emergency meeting with the manager.
But I didn’t react in that way, because at some point in the past year for some reason I cannot even recall I did sign up for online banking. And to my considerable surprise I found it very easy to work with.
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Now I use it all the time. A few clicks in the space of a few seconds and I know all the details I need to know. In past times, as the bank whittled down counter staff to the bare minimum, it would have required a lengthy wait in an irritated and restless queue to get that information.
The change which I long resisted and which I now find so convenient is how it is for me with my limited financial dealings. However the most serious downside to banking “modernisation” is their determination to close branches in Highland towns and villages and leave customers with no bank facilities of any kind.
On a broader scale it’s becoming ever clearer that older people like me who have instinctively resisted the online world of log-ins, passwords, apps, downloads and all the rest of it to do our daily business are fighting a losing battle. In fact the battle has probably already been lost.
Some face-to-face transactions like paying council tax or getting a rail ticket may still be possible, just about. But the level of inconvenience involved compared with the drive to online clickery is huge. For a long time I viewed my resistance to relentless change as being staunchly worthy. Now I’ve done a complete U-turn. The more I know about how to do things online the better.
That’s not to say it all replicates the ease and convenience – for me at any rate – of online banking. Some of it can be maddeningly confusing. Recently I tried to buy a day pass to watch a football match online. I thought it would be simple, but it took an hour to make the purchase as I was bounced between apps and by the end I had more steam coming out of my ears than any fan at the game.
My banking experience, however, showed me that it’s not all bad. A little online familiarity can go quite a long way. So I’m unaffected by my bank’s decision to end the way I’ve been doing things for the past 50 or so years. Thus we change with the challenging new times, we adapt as best we can, and we avoid altercations about “modernisation” with devoutly “progressive” bank managers.
