I've been pondering this a lot lately. What worth is my high street bank or any high street bank for that matter?
My view of their philosophy has always been; during the 60s/70s/80s early 90s, how can we (the bank) increase the customers wealth. From the mid 90s I've seen it as, how can the customer increase our wealth.
During my lifetime my bank has never contacted me with an offer or advice to increase the health of my account. They've only ever contacted me to sell me something, like insurance or other such nonsense. It used to be that being in contact with the bank was of importance, and that idea is still evident as over the years I've been asked where my bank manager is or when I put a cheque in I have to give the address of the bank I signed up with, but I see that of absolutely no relevance these days. What difference does it make, especially as mine closed down eons ago to the point I barely remember its existence.
Additionally it was the done thing to have both a bank and a building society account. However, with interest rates as they have been for the last 10+ years, that's now a dilapidated view.
My current bank hadn't changed their online banking system since it was first implemented, back in roughly 2002, until last year. They made an already terrible experience even worse. You have to keep digging further and further for basic information that should be on the first page.
Looking at this letter on Wiki, it's clear that banks were much more adaptable to change back then. I view the electronic revolution described in the letter as the digital revolution we're currently experiencing, only this time round, traditional high street banks are so far behind that I'm not sure they will ever catch up.
My train of thought is to modernise and adapt over the next 24 months. I'd transition to a modern online only bank as well as cautiously a digital asset bank and leave the high street bank for dust as they've failed in almost every way for the last 20 years.
Yes there's some risk involved in the latter, but what's not to love about 12-20% interest being offered on your digital assets.
The online bank I aim to move to can take cheques with a simple photo, and that was for a while the only reason I would have held onto a high street bank.
Has anyone already made this leap and modernised, or is there no way you would change from your high street bank, do they offer you something you just can't give up?