“Lloyds " last branch in town "promise was poorly considered. These are empty slogans, that ought to end with "as long as it makes sense to us".
”
I suppose it was dreamed up by an internal marketing department (or external agency) that didn't really understand or appreciated the huge change in the high street and banking in particular.
I think we've had people banging on about the virtual high street and how everything will change from about 1999 onwards, but with very little actual change. But it's prob only the last 5 years it's really happened, and the pace and speed has been quite breathtaking, being fuelled by a world recession and a need to reduce costs and be more efficient.
Do we need a branch for all banking brands in every town and high street? Or is it we expect there to be one on the very occasional time we actually need to use it? If so is it fair to expect the banks to pay for it?
I guess it goes back to the Comet, Woolworths etc etc argument. Use it or lose it.
I imagine in the future, there will be a hight street banking branch which will be a co-operative of all the chains, and funded by all. Small retailers still need to cash up or collect change for till floats, and you still need to visit the branch for certain functions, loans, mortgages etc. Maybe it will be an independent company born to handle the high street physical presence of all the big banks, and you can open up a Lloyds, Barclays or whatever account if you wanted.
