One of the reasons your banks are blowing up all communication channels saying "Please don't come in to ask questions. Our phone lines are overwhelmed. Have you tried online banking for routine transactions?" is the stated, obvious one.
One reason is unstated.
One reason is unstated.
One of the big questions for the long-term impact of this extraordinary event is which user behaviors, having been hit by a once-in-a-lifetime mass change in expectations, stay changed the day after.
Banks are pretty obviously betting "Twenty years of websites and mobile apps didn't get the bulk of our deposit base to enthusiastically adopt online banking to the exclusion of higher cost channels... but twenty weeks of stay at home orders might just do that."
"Higher-cost channels?"
In order of costs per transaction, with an order of magnitude gap:
Branch network.
Human-assisted telephone banking.
ATMs / automated telephone banking.
(Bank by mail barely relevant to this discussion due to relative volumes.)
In order of costs per transaction, with an order of magnitude gap:
Branch network.
Human-assisted telephone banking.
ATMs / automated telephone banking.
(Bank by mail barely relevant to this discussion due to relative volumes.)
"Bank by mail?"
Oh that's a thing. The overwhelmingly most common use cases are depositing checks and opening accounts. (Historically used to be huge in credit cards but, thankfully, online account applications are eating most of it.)
Oh that's a thing. The overwhelmingly most common use cases are depositing checks and opening accounts. (Historically used to be huge in credit cards but, thankfully, online account applications are eating most of it.)
(Also still a surprisingly huge chunk of mortgage payments, which are a huge portion of the economy. Sophisticated financial instruments rely on thousands of hours of people opening envelopes and making sure that checks are properly entered against the right account.)
