6 ms·

The lobbies are usually quite busy in my area.

by stronglikedan 8y ago

mixmastamyk 8y ago
Probably due to the archaic state of banking in the US rather than excessive need.
- Loughla 8y ago
  What? Explain that.
  - mixmastamyk 8y ago
    In more developed (read less politically captured) countries banking tasks are automated, ubiquitous, quick, and free. Take New Zealand for example. Sending 25 cents immediately to a friend to cover the cost of a cookie takes a few taps. Salary and rent is paid automatically directly to bank accounts every week. Bills, utilities, govt all on same system. Here in CA one birthplace of the internet, I have to print a paper check for the landlord like it's the 70s.
    - seanmcdirmid 8y ago
      You can send money easily with a few taps in the USA also. I haven’t written a paper check to a landlord in over 15 years (but I had to do the money bags thing for a few years in China). Heck, even if they don’t have online payments setu, you can usually just auto send them the money as a payee (I do this with my daycare). It’s annoying when I do need to use a paper check once or twice a year, I just go to the bank for a temp check (which is the only time I visit a bank branch also).
      - mixmastamyk 8y ago
        Not first-party to every one. See my cousin comment.
        seanmcdirmid 8y ago
        My wife used Zelle to transfer money to my aunt when we went shopping at Costco a few weeks ago. It didn't seem hard at all, similar to how she would do it with WeChat back in China. Granted, this isn't something we have to do in the states very often, and maybe it falls down in general? I'm still very surprised you have to write a paper check for rent. Your landlord doesn't have online banking? Even if you have to use your bank's online bill pay feature, they will issue and send the paper check for you if your landlord doesn't accept online transfers. For me, my rental management company has online payments, my daycare uses bill pay, everyone else is online or what not, except for some child development classes I'm taking at the local college, which still require paper checks for tuition.
        mixmastamyk 8y ago
        Bill pay prints/mails the check. Still ridiculous when the internet is almost 40 years old. Numerous work arounds and excuses described here demonstrate a kind of stockhome syndrome regarding banking and taxes in the US.
    - Loughla 8y ago
      I feel like that's situational. I live in very flyover rural US, and the only time I use a check is to pay for my electric and internet, even though the option is there for electronic payments. I only do that because the companies are awful and I'm trying to inconvenience them in a small way. And there are definitely ways to pay other people via electronics.
    - cc439 8y ago
      That sounds like more like your landlord is antiquated, not banks. Not only does Venmo exist as an all-inclusive payment option, every major bank (i.e. not a local one with <15 branches) I'm aware of supports or provides a similar service like Zelle which is used by Bank of America, TD Bank, and others. I'm able to live my life almost entirely independent of banking at a physical location with the rare exceptions being obtaining a cashier's check and withdrawing or depositing large sums of money. There are regulatory/legal hurdles surrounding daily maximum transfer, withdrawl, and deposit amounts as well as what kind of reporting is required for really large sums (like the check you get at closing when you sell your home for example) but this is also the case everywhere else in the 1st world AFAIK.
      - mixmastamyk 8y ago
        Just what I want, an unwarranted rent-seeking third-party in between my financial transactions. No thanks. Not after experiencing better. The taps mentioned are instructions for my bank to send money directly to another account now or tonight. I've heard Zelle is supposed to be some consortium and may be better, but it is still twenty years late and hardly ubiquitous.
  - trophycase 8y ago
    Another anecdote. I went to the bank to get a proof of funds statement to purchase a property. Rather than just having some automated thing I could either print by myself, or have the teller/banker print off, the banker proceeded to take an old version of the PDF (one with other people's names in all the fields) and one by one change the value of each field. In the end, one of the fields was wrong and he had to fix it and reprint it. This process took at least 15 minutes, when it should easily have taken 15 seconds.
- TheHypnotist 8y ago
  There's also an opportunity in having people work with one another. For instance, we were always instructed to try and get the client seated with one of our office reps. Whether it's to look at their current loan situation or sign them up for a new credit card.
  - mixmastamyk 8y ago
    Those use cases exist, but probably don't require an office on every other block.

The lobbies are usually quite busy in my area.

mixmastamyk 8y ago

Probably due to the archaic state of banking in the US rather than excessive need.

Loughla 8y ago
What? Explain that.
- mixmastamyk 8y ago
  In more developed (read less politically captured) countries banking tasks are automated, ubiquitous, quick, and free. Take New Zealand for example. Sending 25 cents immediately to a friend to cover the cost of a cookie takes a few taps. Salary and rent is paid automatically directly to bank accounts every week. Bills, utilities, govt all on same system. Here in CA one birthplace of the internet, I have to print a paper check for the landlord like it's the 70s.
  - seanmcdirmid 8y ago
    You can send money easily with a few taps in the USA also. I haven’t written a paper check to a landlord in over 15 years (but I had to do the money bags thing for a few years in China). Heck, even if they don’t have online payments setu, you can usually just auto send them the money as a payee (I do this with my daycare). It’s annoying when I do need to use a paper check once or twice a year, I just go to the bank for a temp check (which is the only time I visit a bank branch also).
    - mixmastamyk 8y ago
      Not first-party to every one. See my cousin comment.
      - seanmcdirmid 8y ago
        My wife used Zelle to transfer money to my aunt when we went shopping at Costco a few weeks ago. It didn't seem hard at all, similar to how she would do it with WeChat back in China. Granted, this isn't something we have to do in the states very often, and maybe it falls down in general? I'm still very surprised you have to write a paper check for rent. Your landlord doesn't have online banking? Even if you have to use your bank's online bill pay feature, they will issue and send the paper check for you if your landlord doesn't accept online transfers. For me, my rental management company has online payments, my daycare uses bill pay, everyone else is online or what not, except for some child development classes I'm taking at the local college, which still require paper checks for tuition.
        mixmastamyk 8y ago
        Bill pay prints/mails the check. Still ridiculous when the internet is almost 40 years old. Numerous work arounds and excuses described here demonstrate a kind of stockhome syndrome regarding banking and taxes in the US.
  - Loughla 8y ago
    I feel like that's situational. I live in very flyover rural US, and the only time I use a check is to pay for my electric and internet, even though the option is there for electronic payments. I only do that because the companies are awful and I'm trying to inconvenience them in a small way. And there are definitely ways to pay other people via electronics.
  - cc439 8y ago
    That sounds like more like your landlord is antiquated, not banks. Not only does Venmo exist as an all-inclusive payment option, every major bank (i.e. not a local one with <15 branches) I'm aware of supports or provides a similar service like Zelle which is used by Bank of America, TD Bank, and others. I'm able to live my life almost entirely independent of banking at a physical location with the rare exceptions being obtaining a cashier's check and withdrawing or depositing large sums of money. There are regulatory/legal hurdles surrounding daily maximum transfer, withdrawl, and deposit amounts as well as what kind of reporting is required for really large sums (like the check you get at closing when you sell your home for example) but this is also the case everywhere else in the 1st world AFAIK.
    - mixmastamyk 8y ago
      Just what I want, an unwarranted rent-seeking third-party in between my financial transactions. No thanks. Not after experiencing better. The taps mentioned are instructions for my bank to send money directly to another account now or tonight. I've heard Zelle is supposed to be some consortium and may be better, but it is still twenty years late and hardly ubiquitous.
- trophycase 8y ago
  Another anecdote. I went to the bank to get a proof of funds statement to purchase a property. Rather than just having some automated thing I could either print by myself, or have the teller/banker print off, the banker proceeded to take an old version of the PDF (one with other people's names in all the fields) and one by one change the value of each field. In the end, one of the fields was wrong and he had to fix it and reprint it. This process took at least 15 minutes, when it should easily have taken 15 seconds.
TheHypnotist 8y ago
There's also an opportunity in having people work with one another. For instance, we were always instructed to try and get the client seated with one of our office reps. Whether it's to look at their current loan situation or sign them up for a new credit card.
- mixmastamyk 8y ago
  Those use cases exist, but probably don't require an office on every other block.