How Do I Love Banking? Let Me Count The Ways

Banks should stop trying to tell customers how to bank.

There appears to have been a movement in the past 40 years to influence people into new habits of banking. Prior to 1970, no one really cared how people banked because the only two ways were chipped in granite, or more correctly, in brick and mortar and a steel box painted Army green.

The last time I remember anyone telling me how to do something was when I was a cadet in ROTC. It involved geometry, physics and biology to get it right, and right I did. I still do it right when I have to. But no one's going to tell me how to bank. Here are the channels I use and I know when to use them and the reasons. The composite works perfectly for me. One method can't do it all.

1. Internet Banking

2. ATM

3. Branch Drive UP

4. Telephone Banking

5. USPS Mail

These channels are personal and I'm not selling them to anyone. They work for me, an analyst would understand my rationale, and nothing is going to make me change.

So for those people who love to write stories about how consumers should bank in the 21st Century, give it a rest. Banking habits move at their own pace, regardless of external influences. ATMs took twelve years to gain reasonable recognition. The Internet is in its fifteenth year and not even close to 50% adoption if one uses bill pay as a yardstick for significant adoption. And on top of all that, bankers aren't rushing to do anything new. They're still in recovery rehab.