Wyn Drabble: Curtains coming down on banking as we know it

Will we all have to get used to internet banking? Photo / File

The postal service appears to be pretty much a goner. So, too, it seems is banking. Well, at least, face-to-face banking where the customer hands over a canvas bag full of loot then a robber comes in and steals it all at gunpoint. Today's hold-ups are done by hacking.

It's interesting too that we trust banks with our money yet they don't trust us with their ballpoint pens, tethered as they are on little bead strings. It's one of the ironies of banking.

Anyway, my bank experience this week was certainly evidence that the curtains are coming down on banking as we knew it and that storing your wealth under the mattress might regain favour.

Wyn Drabble

To deal with a matter, details of which need not concern you here, I felt I needed face-to-face discussion with a banky person, preferably one who knew me.

Alas, I didn't know what the reduced hours of my bank branch were and, as you probably know, any bank branch is Fort Knox to reach by phone.

So, internet to the rescue. I located my own branch but the hours were listed as, I kid you not, 24/7. Now I understand they can get away with that given that online banking is always available – except when it's "down" for maintenance – but that wasn't much help to me.

I phoned the 0800 number where I was put through a number of digital interviews and was asked to state simply the reason for my call. Using my finest diction, I said that I wanted to know the opening days and hours of such-and-such a branch.

Because my call was important to them, they let me wait on the line listening to execrable music for 25 minutes. The woman who finally answered told me I could have found that information on the website. I struck back with my trump card, "24/7".

For my convenience, the branch would be open the very next day. So in I went.

Inside the bank I was number eight in a queue; that's eight real people who, according to bank bigwigs, don't need physical banks any more. The topic of discussion among queue-standers was, surprise, the closing down of the branch.

The most delightful of the complaints was from a woman who was concerned because she didn't know where she was now going to get her 20 cent pieces for bingo. Sorry, I don't know how 20 cent coins are used in bingo so I readily admit I need to get out more. But it's still a cracker of a concern.

I suppose, as a courtesy, I should have phoned back the 0800 number and let them know that, thanks to their help, I had successfully completed my bank visit. Unfortunately I did not have 25 minutes to spare.

Even though dreams feature weird impossibilities and anachronisms, there must be a link with real events. That very night, my dream featured me checking in to a hotel in which I could not find my room. I asked help from staff members at various points but after I had followed them for a while they simply vanished.

One was with me long enough to share the information that the hotel boasted two swimming pools but one was currently unavailable "because of the situation in Uganda". Was that a link with my recent stay in the Auckland waterfront Hilton where the pool was "currently unavailable" because of strengthening work?

Finally my frustration led me back to reception. I demanded help to find my room because, so far, the staff had been most unhelpful and I had wasted – I looked at my watch – 25 minutes of my life!

Twenty-five, two five.

BINGO!

Wyn Drabble is a teacher of English, a writer, musician and public speaker.