In God We Trust - But Not Online Banking!

The headline "Consumers losing trust in online banking" caught my eye as another example of marketers pushing attributes of their choice rather than of their customers.

I don't know the actual truth of the state of online banking security, but of course that doesn't mattter. I'm not a user for just those paranoid reasons outlined in the article and because, over time, my unscientific survey has found an even more visceral aversion from every IT professional with whom I've discussed it.

In contrast, banks are focussed on introducing cost-saving technology under the premise of making it more "convenient" to do our banking and to offer us more choice but that doesn't focus on what's really important to banking customers. They've actually overlooked why they came into existence in the first place. For banks, money is in some sense a factor of production, whereas to the individual our money is really important and if we suspect there's the slightest chance of hassle-free banking becoming a really big hassle, then we won't trust what they tell us.

One negative experience or even reportage of such an incident inevitably means it could happen to us and that is why so many customers won't even make deposits in automated in-bank machines. The rubber stamp of a human teller is in some way more valid and reassuring than a machine's print-out and thus they prefer to stand on line than be online.