Banking in the 21st Century

More years ago than I care to remember, Ok it was 1971, I left college To work for one of the main High St banks, The Midland and although it wasn't my first choice, they made the offer first so, thats where I went.

I was a Rem Clerk, for far longer than I should have been but in between that most boring of jobs, I also learnt to operate what was then the acme of technology, a computer.

It wasn't really a computer, but a terminal, the actual computer was owned by the Post office and was in Bootle, I was in Bedminster Bristol, and the terminal was £250, 000, didn't have a screen but had 2 tally rolls instead & was programmed by a roll of punched paper that was kept in a small tobacco tin.

In those days It took 3 days to clear a cheque from one of the major 4 banks, National Westminster, Barclays, Lloyds or Midland. They were known as "Walks" as when the cheques reached head office in London, they were "walked" round to the other head offices.

That was 41 years ago, The Midland bank is long gone & owned by some far eastern Company, I also no longer bank with them. we now we have ATMs which can dispense cash 24 hours a day and remove money from your account in an instant. Computers are now much more powerful and they even have machines in branch to pay in, pay bills etc without any human intervention.

I know, its common to hammer bankers, particularly since 2008 and the big crash, for which we all, including me, are still suffering but and its a big "but", one thing I really do not understand is this, Why, when money can be moved around the world in an instant does it now take 4 days to clear a cheque?

What is even worse is that it is 4 "working days". Apparently computers and money handling programs do not work on bank holidays.

On New Years Eve at about 10am I paid a cheque into my account (via a machine as requested by the bank staff) On the 2nd of January It was not even showing on my account, so I queried it. apologies were forthcoming from the branch, they had a "glitch" but the cheque was registeruing wiuth them and it would be cleared by today (3rd January).

Well guess what?, it wasn't, Not only that, I was told it now takes 4 days to clear a cheque and it should not really be cleared until Friday as New Years day doesn't count.

Now presumably they have had use of my money from the moment it is paid in, so they are earning interest on it, the payer no longer has it in their account so is loosing interest on it. I cannot pay for my car repairs to get my wife to her radiotherapy appointments every day but do they care? No they don't.

I have to assume that the banks no longer "Walk" cheques between Head Offices as they did over 40 years ago, I have to assume its all electronic transfer today, so perhaps somebody in a bank can explain why it takes so blasted long.

All I can take as comfort in, is that I no longer work for such an organisation today and that when my clients come to me, they go home with everything they came for. Oddly enough that is amostly all due to the fact that world has moved on in the last 40 years, one thing the banks seem to have not noticed.