Are highstreet banks disappearing?

[wigz]

Owing to the increase in popularity of internet and telephone banking...are we slowly migrating away from local high street banking?

[gammaray]

I'd say that rather than people migrating from the banks it's the banks migrating from the people.

The one thing I have never understood about banks is how they hold such power over us as customers. The bank says jump, we invariably ask how high. However banks only exist because customers want to put in their money. They work for us. They are suppliers of a service, Yet they don't act like any supplier I know keen to maintain it's customer base. And we let them get away with it!

[andy-hughes]

Good point, but in the same way that newspapers and lending libraries and record shops co-exist alongside the Internet, high street banks still retain enough of a customer base to make them viable. Plenty of small businesses bank cash takings, and the majority of customers (myself included) do not trust internet banking, and prefer to use counter service.

[Loosehead]

I think we are, I mean I can't remember the last time I went into a branch. I've just got everything automated with Internet banking, I swear by it now, never had a pound out of place. Obviously you have to be vigilant with all the attempted scams about but generally I think it's vast improvement. A cheque book lasts me at least a year and I only write those when the recipient is living in the stoneage.