Re: Continued Cuts
@Steve Davis 3 - I used to go to the bank a dozen or so times a month. To cash cheques, to use the cashpoint (no Link service in the old days - Barclays customer, Barclays cashpoint; the tie up with Lloyds to share cashpoints was a miracle), to pay the gas bill, telephone bill, electricity bill, credit card bill, poll tax, etc. and to pay in cheques. I honestly can't remember the last time I went to the branch - it must be over three years ago.
Back office stuff - I get, but how much are people willing to pay to keep staff onshore? If one bank stays onshore and the rest go offshore then it'll make less money, the share price will drop, it'll get bought out and the staff laid off and offshored. They could fix this by charging customers for their banking, but free banking is a sacred cow in this country and if that means a bunch of foreigners being paid sh*t wages in sweatshop conditions with no meal breaks or fire exits then so be it, as long as I don't have to pay £10 a year for my banking.
For the past 30 years we, consumers, have been complicit as industry after industry has left the country or raced to the bottom to save money. We don't give a f**k where stuff's made, how badly staff are treated or where the profits go as long as we can buy cheap stuff. We prefer to buy trainers in well known discount sports outlets rather than the local indy sports shop and don't give a toss about the poor buggers who are treated like crap in their UK warehouses so we can save a fiver. Online shopping is so convenient - who cares if the distribution centre staff are docked wages for taking too long to piss as long as I can order a printer cartridge by lunchtime and have it tomorrow. And don't even start me on the gig economy.
Capitalism delivers what customers value. As long as customers value cheap over ethical, moral, society, family, respect, environment, participation,....., then the market will deliver cheap at the expense of everything else .
The banks will continue to go the same way until their customers give a toss about something other than cheap. Minimum wage, H&S, holiday pay, sick pay, pensions, p/maternity leave, welfare state etc. don't come cheap and most of us believe that these benefits are worth paying for, but only when they apply to our job.
/end rant - sorry it came your way Steve - not aimed at you.