Aib closing branches

cazzak79

Aib are closing in total 61 branches and amalgamating 6
Also raising mortgage rates
Great... Not

channelsurfer2

standard variable rate going up to 3.5% from 3% thats a big jump considering the ECB actually reduced rates by 0.25% earlier this month. another taxpayer funded bank hitting the irish people where it hurts just to return to profit.

skydish79

Somebody has to pay for their mistakes and generous redundancy packages

ardmacha

another taxpayer funded bank hitting the irish people where it hurts just to return to profit.

Which is all to be benefit of the Irish people who are taxpayers.

coylemj

The sooner the banks return to profit the quicker they can be sold and the taxpayer gets some of our money back.

gozunda

cazzak79 wrote: »

Aib are closing in total 61 branches and amalgamating 6
Also raising mortgage rates
Great... Not

It would appear from AIB's recent activity - they are attempting to get rid of the small-medium personal customer base

First they insisted every one keep 2500 in their account and now they close a load of branches...

recently found this from a time (1978) that they apparently actually wanted customers....

I shop here because it gives me better service....just like my AIB branch

!!!

hrrummmmmpppahahaha (sorry - just picked myself up off the floor)

love it....

coylemj

I'll give you another story about banks and their branches....

I was on a focus group a few years ago, we were discussing some new financial product. One of the people in the group was a retired man, about 60-65 age bracket. He started to bemoan the fact that Bank of Ireland had closed a branch in the Dublin suburbs near him. He told us how it was a great little branch and he used to go in and chat to the staff but that wasn't really possible now that the branch had been amalgamated into a bigger branch and he didn't feel that he was as welcome there as in the old branch because it was bigger, was less personal and didn't have the same cosy feel to it.

He looked like a reasonably prosperous individual and given his age I reckoned he probably had a decent sum of money salted away somewhere so I asked him where he had his money on deposit to which he replied 'Northern Rock, they pay the best interest rate these days'.

The irony was completely lost on him so I took the time to point out that Northern Rock didn't have a single branch in the Republic, that they only dealt with people through the post and I asked him how could he expect BOI to maintain a network of branches if people like him effectively used them as a social service but gave their business to UK banks with no branches here.

gozunda

coylemj wrote: »

I'll give you another story about banks and their branches....

I was on a focus group a few years ago, we were discussing some new financial product. One of the people in the group was a retired man, about 60-65 age bracket. He started to bemoan the fact that Bank of Ireland had closed a branch in the Dublin suburbs near him. He told us how it was a great little branch and he used to go in and chat to the staff but that wasn't really possible now that the branch had been amalgamated into a bigger branch and he didn't feel that he was as welcome there as in the old branch because it was bigger, was less personal and didn't have the same cosy feel to it.

He looked like a reasonably prosperous individual and given his age I reckoned he probably had a decent sum of money salted away somewhere so I asked him where he had his money on deposit to which he replied 'Northern Rock, they pay the best interest rate these days'.

The irony was completely lost on him so I took the time to point out that Northern Rock didn't have a single branch in the Republic, that they only dealt with people through the post and I asked him how could he expect BOI to maintain a network of branches if people like him effectively used them as a social service but gave their business to UK banks with no branches here.

Get where you are coming from

however for the avegage bank user without large dollpos of cash salted away and who just happen to live outside the capital the closures would appear to be just another of (state-owned) AIB policy to get rid of personal customers...

coylemj

gozunda wrote: »

Get where you are coming from

however for the avegage bank user without large dollpos of cash salted away and who just happen to live outside the capital the closures would appear to be just another of (state-owned) AIB policy to get rid of personal customers...

Yup, looks like that's the way things are going. Soon the credit union and post office will be the only financial institutions handling cash for personal customers.

hognef

coylemj wrote: »

gozunda wrote: »

Get where you are coming from

however for the avegage bank user without large dollpos of cash salted away and who just happen to live outside the capital the closures would appear to be just another of (state-owned) AIB policy to get rid of personal customers...

Yup, looks like that's the way things are going. Soon the credit union and post office will be the only financial institutions handling cash for personal customers.

With Ireland still being one of the more cash-dependent of western countries, my hope is for this to be just one of many steps on the way to a more modern society in which electronic money is the norm, and cash is only used for very minor transactions.

In fact, I'd like nothing more than a branch-less, fully online, bank. Something similar to Rabo, except it would have to offer all everyday banking products, including current accounts and mortgages. That'd mean massive savings from reduced staffing, which in turn should/would result in much more aggressive pricing. Such banks have been in operation for years already in more technologically advanced economies, so they're hardly something to be scared of.

BuffyBot

Ironically, AIB was planning to this very thing over 10 years ago - a "virtual" bank that was operated solely by telephone/internet/post a la First Direct in the UK. It was pulled days before launch..

hognef

BuffyBot wrote: »

Ironically, AIB was planning to this very thing over 10 years ago - a "virtual" bank that was operated solely by telephone/internet/post a la First Direct in the UK. It was pulled days before launch..

I did not know that. Any idea why it was pulled?

coylemj

hognef wrote: »

I did not know that. Any idea why it was pulled?

I suspect political pressure, the plan would obviously have involved thousands of redundancies and dozens of branch closures in towns represented by lots of TDs.

NIMAN

Donegal is being badly hit by the AIB branch closures.

Said they will offer more services through your local Post Office though. Will wait and see.

BuffyBot

coylemj wrote: »

I suspect political pressure, the plan would obviously have involved thousands of redundancies and dozens of branch closures in towns represented by lots of TDs.

Not an iota. No AIB branches faced closure because of it, in fact they were key to it (a virtual bank is all well and good, but you sometimes still need to lodge/withdraw cash). The "new" bank was to compliment AIB, not replace it - and appeal to what was then a new demographic: the young, time constrained but tech savvy generation.

It was pulled because AIB's top folks got cold feet about it. They may have been right: if you look to the UK only Smile and First Direct (which was around pre-mass Internet use) are the only "virtual" banks still doing any real business. Intelligent Finance, Cahoot etc are to all intents and purposes not open for new business. on he other hand it could of worked well for them. We''ll never know

Lambsbread

I often wonder if closing branches will cause more economic problems in the long-term. For small business and personal customers it will be very difficult to have a proper relationship with a bank manager.

In this case because you have no real contact in the bank, it might be difficult to get the financing or the products you need from the bank. For a small business that the bank does not really know, they may be more reluctant to finance them. However, with a good relationship and a good understanding of the business by the bank they may be more willing.

I am not sure if this will end up being the case, but I think it will hurt the economy in the long run. Maybe there is a gap for the credit unions to grow into.

wmpdd3

There really is a market for credit unions to expand and hoober up customers, pity they are too broke to invest in the technology!

coylemj

wmpdd3 wrote: »

There really is a market for credit unions to expand and hoober up customers, pity they are too broke to invest in the technology!

They had a stab at it a few years ago, the Irish League of Credit Unions kicked off a project to link up the CUs and roll out a network of ATMs so that they could compete with the regular banks for the business of younger folk.

Unfortunately it was a monumental cock-up from start to finish. They engaged a UK IT services company to lead the project but things started to wrong from the start. The ILCU didn't realise until it was too late that in common with all financial services companies they would have pay VAT on the services which they could not reclaim from their customers - the bill went up by 21% overnight when this came to light. The whole project eventually crumbled at a cost of over €100m

Wacker The Attacker

wmpdd3 wrote: »

There really is a market for credit unions to expand and hoober up customers, pity they are too broke to invest in the technology!

That could be said of any financial institution

If any of them were willing they'd be in pole position to hoover up any customer willing to take the time to move.

coylemj

BuffyBot wrote: »

Not an iota. No AIB branches faced closure because of it, in fact they were key to it (a virtual bank is all well and good, but you sometimes still need to lodge/withdraw cash). The "new" bank was to compliment AIB, not replace it - and appeal to what was then a new demographic: the young, time constrained but tech savvy generation.

It was pulled because AIB's top folks got cold feet about it. They may have been right: if you look to the UK only Smile and First Direct (which was around pre-mass Internet use) are the only "virtual" banks still doing any real business. Intelligent Finance, Cahoot etc are to all intents and purposes not open for new business. on he other hand it could of worked well for them. We''ll never know

I remember it now. At the time, every time either AIB or BOI announced results, the analysts slated them for not having a 'coherent' strategy for internet banking so there was huge pressure on each of them to launch some kind of internet bank.

I was even on a focus group that looked at various names, I think the one we settled on was 'Timbali. The requirement was for a name that was easy to recall and difficult to misspell, they gave us a few options and that was the one we went for.