The Barclays and other non-Lloyds/TSB Bank thread

[Martin Phillp]

My local Barclays which closed on Friday hasn't been de-branded yet. The ATMS are still in place with a stuck on "DON'T USE" sign over the screens.

[Martin Phillp]

Last Friday, I visited the Barclays in Tottenham Court Road (London), it's on the main road in a prime location in the West End, yet when I walked in, I was able to go straight to the self-service banking ATM without a queue at all. There was a steady amount of people using them, but no queue.

So in the middle of London, people aren't bothering to use them, yet my now closed branch had queues for the machines every day until the end, despite the claims from Barclays that there were only 40 people a day using them or something along those lines.

Have they closed the wrong branches? Suburban branches from my experience were still being used for banking, while central town branches are seeing less custom.

[BBC TV Centre]

I'm familiar with the TCR one, it looks tiny from the outside but is quite cavernous once you get in and up the escalator.

That's good though, is it not, that they have a steady flow of people and sufficient capacity?

No one likes to queue and the fact there are queues are symtomatic of the fact they've not matched resources with the demand.

I suppose it could also be down to purely fewer people in town due to weather, strikes etc.

As for the suburban branches, I'm sure there must be more at play than just amount of visitors to the branch. The costs for leases (and time remaining), rates, condition of the building, sales of other products along with other metrics they use must factor in surely.

I have noticed though my local Barclays in Twickenham always locks out the ATMs during the weekend so they are unusable.

HSBC is the next to jump and closing their branch so I think it'll be a matter of time before the Barclays closes, and no doubt they will cite the lack of people not using the cash machine as one of the factors (well surprise fucking surprise when you lock the machine out to stop people using it).

I do not understand why the UK just can't be like some other countries and each bank has an ATM of its own in a shared location (such as shopping mall) so its clients are able to manage their account via it.

[Martin Phillp]

TCR Barclays was once an EasyEverything Internet Cafe until the took over the lease. I've never been upstairs in that branch, but I remember the upper floor being huge when it was a cafe. (It encompasses the Sainsbury's downstairs)

The ground floor is smaller but still big enough to handle a long queue to which pre-Covid had a queue for the machines right back to the door.

[thegeek]

I assume the banks know what branches are being used and what aren't - that's not to say that's their main driver for choosing which to close, though.

My current banking anecdote is courtesy of my wife, who's just become treasurer of a society; and initially couldn't get herself added to the bank account (because the branch was closing the next week but they'd already got rid of anyone who could do anything useful); then in a different branch couldn't deposit cash because there were no cashiers; then in a third branch, when she was eventually served, found the tellers lacked basic maths skills.

Sounds like a right faff, if I'm honest.

[gottago]

Last Friday, I visited the Barclays in Tottenham Court Road (London), it's on the main road in a prime location in the West End, yet when I walked in, I was able to go straight to the self-service banking ATM without a queue at all. There was a steady amount of people using them, but no queue.

So in the middle of London, people aren't bothering to use them, yet my now closed branch had queues for the machines every day until the end, despite the claims from Barclays that there were only 40 people a day using them or something along those lines.

Have they closed the wrong branches? Suburban branches from my experience were still being used for banking, while central town branches are seeing less custom.

Surely it's down the amount of money coming into the branch rather than the queues of people using the ATMs? I expect right in the centre of London where few people live but thousands of businesses exist they're going to have a substantially higher amount of income from business banking customers via this branch than they would from low-income personal banking customers in the suburbs?

[BBC TV Centre]

I assume the banks know what branches are being used and what aren't - that's not to say that's their main driver for choosing which to close, though.

My current banking anecdote is courtesy of my wife, who's just become treasurer of a society; and initially couldn't get herself added to the bank account (because the branch was closing the next week but they'd already got rid of anyone who could do anything useful); then in a different branch couldn't deposit cash because there were no cashiers; then in a third branch, when she was eventually served, found the tellers lacked basic maths skills.

Sounds like a right faff, if I'm honest.

Is this a branch of the world's former local bank?They seem to hellbent on a path to wanting to cut down their branch estate and the service has nose-dived.

I recently tried to open up a premier account and associated products and found the service was very much of we can't help you in the branch. For an account of such a type and wanting to open various other products at the same time, I would have expected some good old fashioned service - you know, a let's sit down with a coffee and do an application, and what can we help you with rather than a "do it online and just scan the QR code".

It turns out since covid (urgh) all of the opening of such accounts is done remotely and not in the branch, and I would have a team telephone me to do one.

Which is stupid really and erodes value in having such an account; needless to say I didn't bother in the end such was the staff's level of service, totally put me off as I would have just liked someone to sort the relevant applications and me leave the branch knowing it was all in hand, and I had to do was wait for the paperwork, cards etc.

[thegeek]

in this case, it wasn't them.

But I did recently open an HSBC account online (for the bonus), and transferred some money in to the account (for the bonus), then back out again, to a different one of my accounts. This triggered some sort of fraud alert, and for the transaction to go through, I had to go through 20 minutes of questioning about whether anyone had asked me to make the transactions; and that sometimes people ask people to make this sort of transaction but then when the bank ask, deny that anyone had asked them to; and did that sound familiar to me; and so on. So they're investing in something. Protecting themselves from having to pay out to reimburse money people lost to fraudsters, mostly.

[all new Phil]

I assume the banks know what branches are being used and what aren't - that's not to say that's their main driver for choosing which to close, though.

My current banking anecdote is courtesy of my wife, who's just become treasurer of a society; and initially couldn't get herself added to the bank account (because the branch was closing the next week but they'd already got rid of anyone who could do anything useful); then in a different branch couldn't deposit cash because there were no cashiers; then in a third branch, when she was eventually served, found the tellers lacked basic maths skills.

Sounds like a right faff, if I'm honest.

Is this a branch of the world's former local bank?They seem to hellbent on a path to wanting to cut down their branch estate and the service has nose-dived.

I recently tried to open up a premier account and associated products and found the service was very much of we can't help you in the branch. For an account of such a type and wanting to open various other products at the same time, I would have expected some good old fashioned service - you know, a let's sit down with a coffee and do an application, and what can we help you with rather than a "do it online and just scan the QR code".

It turns out since covid (urgh) all of the opening of such accounts is done remotely and not in the branch, and I would have a team telephone me to do one.

Which is stupid really and erodes value in having such an account; needless to say I didn't bother in the end such was the staff's level of service, totally put me off as I would have just liked someone to sort the relevant applications and me leave the branch knowing it was all in hand, and I had to do was wait for the paperwork, cards etc.

I can’t even imagine “level of service” being a deciding factor in opening a bank account. Just apply online ffs.

[tillyoshea]

A couple of years ago, I had a very similar issue with a new HSBC account and ordinary transfers triggering fraud alerts, which is fair enough given they have little to base their automated assessments on.

Their method of contacting me about the potentially fraudulent activity was to send me a text message. The message explicitly said not to call them on their main number, but on a special direct number for the fraud team, quoted in the message, but not published online.

I was duly suspicious and called the main number on my card instead—only for the fraud team to remonstrate with me and tell me that I ought to have called them directly on the unpublished number they texted to me.

It’s like they’re actively trying their best to train their customers to fall for scams.

I’m no longer an HSBC customer.

[Alexia]

HSBC never used to like me topping up by phone back when I was on O2. Used to block my card on a whim. Got so fed up of navigating their fraud hotline. Once they even blocked me for using my card in my local Tesco, but were fine with me using it all over the UK in a short space of time when I went on a couple of trips.

I am also no longer an HSBC customer.